Drug Effects Quotes & Sayings

Nicotine is a fast acting drug with short lived effects, which you can assume by the fact that you need to smoke often. — Gudjon Bergmann

He was prepared to die for it, as one of Baudelaire's dandies might have been prepared to kill himself in order to preserve himself in the condition of a work of art, for he wanted to make this experience a masterpiece of experience which absolutely transcended the everyday. And this would annihilate the effects of the cruel drug, boredom, to which he was addicted although, perhaps, the element of boredom which is implicit in an affair so isolated from the real world was its principle appeal for him. — Angela Carter

Emotions were a drug with their own side effects, ebbs and flows. — Wildbow

Psychedelics show you what's in and on your mind, those subconscious thoughts and feelings that are are hidden, covered up, forgotten, out of sight, maybe even completely unexpected, but nevertheless imminently present. Depending upon set and setting, the same drug, at the same dose, can cause vastly different responses in the same person. One day, very little happens; another day, you soar, full of ecstatic and insightful discoveries; the next, you struggle through a terrifying nightmare. The generic nature of psychedelic, a term wide open to interpretation, suits these effects. — Rick Strassman

I have sat with the mothers who have lost addicted sons. I have sat with families of kids who have been killed in drug-related gang violence. I have been to the prisons. I have seen the effects. At some point in time, I felt I had to do something other than write a novel about it, that I needed to try to make some sort of contribution, at least try to make some sort of difference in the real world. — Don Winslow

We live in a drug culture! Drugs are everywhere and touted as the panacea for every ailment in our society. We have drugs for hyper children, drugs for depression - some of the most insidious drugs ever - , drugs for allergies, drugs for acne, drugs for emphysema and drugs for erectile disfunction - maybe the most useful of them all. And let's not forget the side effects of these wonder drugs! It's cliche to even talk about drug advertisements and the laundry list of side effects tacked onto the end of them, usually rattled off at warp speed by someone on loan from the local auction house. I've seen ads for acne medicines that include side effects that are potentially fatal! Seriously? "Hey! Buy our Acne-Magic Drug! You'll have crystal clear skin! In your coffin!" What the hell is wrong with us? — Steve Bivans

The pope, speaking to participants at a drug enforcement conference in Rome, said that even limited steps to legalize recreational drugs "are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects." But he said the problems underlying drug use must be addressed, including inequality and the lack of opportunities for young people. — Anonymous

I, quite literally, woke up from a coma, from having tried to kill myself and it was very clear to me what my psychiatrist had been saying for years. The choice is not between a drug that has side effects or not, life is not ideal. Yes, your drug has side effects and yes if you don't take it you're going to die. — Kay Redfield Jamison

I'm called the Godfather [of Ecstacy] because I published for the first time information about its effects in man. I feel content with the title. MDMA is a beautiful drug ... — Alexander Shulgin

What's the difference between male and female passion? If love is a drug, what are its side effects? Rhye makes chill-out music, but it never quite lets your mind switch off. — Will Hermes

However, because of the great marketing hype surrounding the SSRIs, one of them, Prozac, now has the distinguished honor of having more adverse effects submitted to the FDA than any other drug in history. More than 40,000 adverse reactions were reported in its first ten years on the market. No other drug even comes close (Breggin and Cohen 67). — Gwen Olsen

time. You can repeat this process as many times as necessary for three or four days, but if the problem persists its time to seek appropriate medical advice. No Drug Pain Relief Obviously you can use over the counter or prescription anti-inflammatory medications for pain relief but you must keep in mind that they could have nasty side effects, including digestive upset. The good — John McArthur

In pharmaceutical speak, psilocybin is known as an asshole inhibitor. — Bill Maher

There are certain jokes that indicate how mainstream a comic is. If you're talking about how the side effects of drugs that they advertise on TV are worse than the actual illness they're supposed to prevent, that's like the hackiest joke out there now. If you're still doing that joke, that usually is an indicator of being mainstream, in a bad way. — Gary Gulman

Our analyses of the FDA data showed relatively little difference between the effects of antidepressants and the effects of placebos. Indeed, the effects were so small that they did not qualify as clinically significant. The drug companies knew how small the effect of their medications were compared to placebos, and so did the FDA and other regulatory agencies. The companies found various ways to make the data seem more favorable to their products, and the FDA helped them keep their negative data secret. In fact, in some instances, the FDA urged the companies to keep negative data hidden, even when the companies wanted to reveal them. My colleagues and I hadn't really discovered anything new. We had merely revealed their 'dirty little secret'. — Irving Kirsch

For all of life's discontents, according to the pharmaceutical industry, there is a drug and you should take it. Then for the side effects of that drug, then there's another drug, and so on. So we're all taking more drugs, and more expensive drugs. — Marcia Angell

When you prescribe a new drug, often you are prescribing something that has only been tested in a few thousand people for a very short period of time, perhaps only six months, and that's not long enough to know whether there are any medium- or long-term side effects. — Ben Goldacre

Tobacco, in its various forms, is one of the most mischievous of all drugs. There is perhaps no other drug which injures the body in so many ways and so universally as does tobacco. Some drugs offer a small degree of compensation for the evil effects which they produce; but tobacco has not a single redeeming feature and gives nothing in return. — John Harvey Kellogg

The more a book is like an opium pipe, the more the Chinaman reader is satisfied with it and tends to discuss the quality of the drug rather than its lethargic effects. — Julio Cortazar

the greatest harm from drug treatment is not so much the toxicity or side effects as it is the suppression effect. — James L. Oschman

When researchers explain the methodology of how they performed their research, there is often a portion that describes the preparation of the lab animals. This section explains that standardized such-and-such breed animals (such as Wistar rats) were "put on a Western diet until their cholesterol and inflammation were sufficiently elevated to carry out the research protocol." What this means is that the Western diet is used to produce specific disease conditions in the lab animals, so that the researchers can carry out their research on different drug effects. Isn't it a bit ironic that poor diet is used to produce disease for drug testing, and yet doctors do not really push good diet as a way of preventing or treating illness? — Richard Matthews

But sometimes optimism is the only drug that works.
But it's sadly temporary in its effects. — Rachel Caine

I also turn to homeopathic remedies for the treatment of indigestion, travel sickness, insomnia and hay fever just to name a few. Homeopathy offers a safe, natural alternative that causes no side effects or drug interactions. — Cindy Crawford

The effect of the current WMS paradigm on the pharmaceutical industry turned out to be catastrophic (for the patient). The rash of drug recalls that has been beleaguering the pharmaceutical industry in the last twenty years is a direct manifestation of drug design based on an incomplete and often incorrect biological and clinical paradigm. Why has the pharmaceutical industry not been capable of producing new drugs that are safe and without severe side effects, that would represent true "therapeutic breakthroughs," like we were used to seeing in the middle of the twentieth century? Why are the "blockbuster" drugs of recent decades not the safe, therapeutic "breakthroughs" our parents had come to trust in? — Mones Abu-Asab

The rationale for the FDA's rigid standards is to avoid the sale of a drug like thalidomide. But the unintended consequence is almost certainly to allow many more people to die prematurely than would have died from side-effects under a less restrictive regime. We count and recount the costs of such side-effects. We do not count the costs of not allowing new drugs to be made available. — Niall Ferguson

Any doctor will admit that any drug can have side effects, and that writing a prescription involves weighing the potential benefits against the risks. — Mark Udall

Much of the early work focused on dopamine and we were really looking for rewarding sorts of effects and sure enough, we only found that. But you can destroy the main dopamine-producing structures of the brain and you can still get an animal to self-administer drugs like cocaine. — Carl Hart

Adamson feels that drug developers are unreasonably concerned about rare events. The reality is children tolerate phase I therapy new agents being tested to find the best dosage and possible side-effects as well as or better than adults, ... Once the initial studies are done that is, phase I trials in adults study should begin in children. — Peter Adamson

I just took some ecstasy, ain't no tellin' what the side effects could be. — Dr. Dre

Whole plants differ in their effects from refined drugs ( ... Plants are dilute preparations (of) the active principles ... Plants usually go into the body through the mouth and stomach, whereas purified chemicals can be put ... by snorting or injecting ... directly into ... bloodstreams without giving ... bodies a chance to process them. Other compounds in drug plants ... may modify the active principles, making them safer ... — Andrew Weil

Our society's almost doctrinal emphasis upon deductive reasoning, convergent thinking and selective retention perversely excludes divergent thinking, approximation and, importantly, guessing. If we are truly to understand the adolescent mind and develop effective ways to minimize the effects of risk-taking behaviour, we really need to understand these processes and engage with them. There is no logic involved with drug-taking and gambling. Adults can learn, too; understanding these mechanisms will also allow us to encourage creativity and value the spontaneity so characteristic of the adolescent mind. — Tony Little

Although drugs are immoral and must be kept from the young, thousands of schools pressure parents to give the drug Ritalin to any lively child who may, sensibly, show signs of boredom in his classroom. Ritalin renders the child docile if not comatose. Side effects? "Stunted growth, facial tics, agitation and aggression, insomnia, appetite loss, headaches, stomach pains and seizures." Marijuana would be far less harmful. — Gore Vidal

Consider the oddity of those drug commercials on television. Fifteen seconds of the purported therapeutic effort, followed by about 45 seconds of a rapidly muttered list of horrific possible side effects. When the ad is over, I can't remember a thing about what the pill is supposed to do, except perhaps cause nausea, liver damage, projectile vomiting, a nasty rash, a four-hour erection, and sudden death. Sudden death is my favorite because there is something comical about it being a side effect. What exactly is the main effect in that case? Relief from abdominal bloating? — Charles Krauthammer

The evidence cited here represents only an infinitesimally small fraction of the total number of interactions operating every moment in our bodies. Clearly, the common belief that we can investigate the effects of a single nutrient or drug, unmindful of the potential modifications by other chemical factors, is foolhardy. This evidence should also make us extremely hesitant to "mega-dose" on nutrients isolated from whole foods. Our bodies have evolved to eat whole foods, and can therefore deal with the combinations and interactions of nutrients contained in those foods. — T. Colin Campbell

I don't know if you realize this, but there are some researchers - doctors - who are giving this kind of drug to volunteers, to see what the effects are, and they're doing it the proper scientific way, in clean white hospital rooms, away from trees and flowers and the wind, and they're surprised at how many of the experiments turn sour. They've never taken any sort of psychedelic themselves, needless to say. Their volunteers - they're called 'subjects,' of course - are given mescaline or LSD and they're all opened up to their surroundings, very sensitive to color and light and other people's emotions, and what are they given to react to? Metal bed-frames and plaster walls, and an occasional white coat carrying a clipboard. Sterility. Most of them say afterward that they'll never do it again. — Alexander Shulgin

It has been said that if a drug has no side effects, then it is unlikely to work. Drug therapy labours under the fundamental problem that usually every single cell in the body has to be treated just to exert a beneficial effect on a small group of cells, perhaps in one tissue. Although drug-targeting technology is improving rapidly, most of us who take an oral dose are still faced with the problem that the vast majority of our cells are being unnecessarily exposed to an agent that at best will have no effect, but at worst will exert many unwanted effects. Essentially, all drug treatment is really a compromise between positive and negative effects in the patient. — Michael D Coleman

Even if conventional medicine tells you that your condition is incurable or that your only option is to live a life dependent on drugs with troublesome side effects, there is hope for improving or reversing your condition. — Leon Chaitow

Drugs and medical technology can be enormously beneficial when used to take care of real complications, but too often they are abused when applied to women birthing normally. These women are thus subjected to unnecessary risks. The key to this problem is informed consent, an ideal too seldom realized. Informed consent means that no woman during pregnancy or labor should ever be deceived into thinking that any drug or procedure (Demerol, Seconal, spinals, caudals, epidurals, paracervical block, etc.) is guaranteed safe. Not only are there no guaranteed safe drugs, but many of them have well-known, recognized side effects and potential side effects.
Informed consent should mean that no woman would ever hear such falsehoods as, "This is harmless," or, "I only give it in such a small dose that it can't affect the baby," or, "This is just a local and won't reach the baby. — Susan McCutcheon

If you say, "I'm bursting with joy," a scientist could analyze your skin and find it loaded with neuropeptides that may have antidepressant effects and that may modulate the immune system. If you say, "I feel exhilarated, unbounded, and joyful," and I were to examine your blood, I would find high levels of interleukin and interferon, which are powerful anticancer drugs. — Deepak Chopra

Does psychiatrists' ability to prescribe drugs give them an advantage over psychologists in places where psychologists cannot prescribe them? Not always. Drugs can be useful, but relying entirely on them can be a mistake. Whereas a typical visit to a clinical psychologist includes an extensive discussion of the issues troubling the client, many visits to a psychiatrist are briefer sessions that focus on checking the effectiveness of a drug and evaluating its side effects. — James W. Kalat

Reason I know, is only a drug, and, as such, its effects are never permanent. But, like the juice of the poppy, it often gives a temporary relief. — Hope Mirrlees

Antidepressants are the biggest fraud in the world. Number one, Prozac gives you a royal soft-on like you wouldn't believe, and number two you never know all the side effects. I look at the pharmaceutical companies as the drug barons, the psychopharmcologists as the mules and the patients as the victims. They're innocent because they think they're being cured. — Robert Evans

It seems reasonable to say that people make good choices in contexts in which they have experience, god information, and prompt feedback - say, choosing among ice cream flavors. People know whether they like chocolate, vanilla, coffee, licorice, or something else. They do less well in contexts in which they are inexperienced and poorly informed, and in which feedback is slow or infrequent - say, in choosing between fruit and ice cream (where the long-term effects are slow and feedback is poor) or in choosing among medical treatments or investment options. If you are given fifty prescription drug plans, with multiple and varying features, you might benefit from a little help. So long as people are not choosing perfectly, some changes in the choice architecture could make their lives go better (as judged by their own preferences, not those of some bureaucrat). — Cass R. Sunstein

Passion is like an intoxicating drug but without the dangers and side effects. — Dave Burgess

It is essential that our present negative propaganda regarding psychedelic drugs be replaced with honesty and truthfulness about their effects, both good and bad. — Alexander Shulgin

Love is like liquor. In love, u feel high as u feel when you drink too much alcohol. It stays in your head for some time, making u tipsy n turvy and disconnected with everything. But just like it's effect fades away slowly and slowly, aching your every nerve so does the after effects of falling out of love. No drug can soothe it away. — Nikita Dudani

Nothing I do to describe these experiences can possibly convey the emotions that went with them. If there were a drug that could reproduce the same effect, I would be on that drug right now, and damn the side effects. Imagine a blend of all your favorite things: ice cream, sex, white sandy beaches, Beethoven's symphonies, all those happy times with your Garden-Weasel, the whole nine yards. Picture these experiences combined, boiled down into their most concentrated elements of pure joy, then multiplied by trillions and injected into every one of your cells. That might begin to help you imagine what I felt when the sense of Something Bigger emerged in the hurricane's eye of my life, surrounded by events that were otherwise completely devastating. The peace and joy were so dazzling, so potent, that I thought they would never fade. — Martha N. Beck

LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence. The wateriness of water is suddenly revealed to you, the carpetness of carpets, the woodness of wood, the yellowness of yellow, the fingernailness of fingernails, the allness of all, the nothingness of all, the allness of nothing. For me music gives access to every one of these essences of existence, but at a fraction of the social or financial cost of a drug and without the need to cry "Wow!" all the time, which is one of LSD's most distressing and least endearing side-effects. — Stephen Fry

No one can accuse Stuart Young of avoiding the big issues - with insight and verve, he tackles head on the existence of God, the mystery of human consciousness and the transformative effects of psychedelic drugs. Recommended. — Mark Chadbourn

More than 26,000 lives may be lost to the effects of drug abuse this year. This tragic impact is felt in communities across this great nation. Sadly many of these deaths occur among our young people. — Elijah Cummings

If you sit in a position where decisions that you take would have a serious effect on people, you can't ignore a lot of experience around the world which says this drug has these negative effects. — Thabo Mbeki

Everything changed when I met the girl. She penetrated a corner of my soul that had been kept sealed and even I didn't know was there. With her gestures, the scent of her skin, her sudden, intense glances that filled me with overwhelming tenderness, with her dependence that was a kind of unthinking, absolute acceptance, she could rescue me instantly from my confusions and obsessions, my discouragement and failure, or my simple daily routine, and leave me inside a radiant circle made of throbbing energy and powerful certainty, like the effects of an unknown drug that produces unconditional happiness. — Alvaro Mutis

If you rush to take a drug, do so with the full knowledge that you are being a Guinea Pig. The longer a drug is on the market, the more will be known about the side effects. — Robert S. Mendelsohn

Drug discovery is terribly expensive, just to find out how one drug could or could not work and all its side effects. — Henry Markram

For instance, they [The Federal Narcotics Bureau ] give out that marijuana is a harmful and habit-forming drug, and it simply isn't. They claim that you can get addicted to opiates with one shot, and you can't. They over-estimate the physical bad effects, and so forth. — William S. Burroughs

When conventional medicine fails, when we must confront pain and death, of course we are open to other prospects for hope.
And, after all, some illnesses are psychogenic. Many can be at least ameliorated by a positive cast of mind. Placebos are dummy drugs, often sugar pills. Drug companies routinely compare the effectiveness of their drugs against placebos given to patients with the same disease who had no way to tell the difference between the drug and the placebo. Placebos can be astonishingly effective, especially for colds, anxiety, depression, pain, and symptoms that are plausibly generated by the mind. Conceivably, endorphins -the small brain proteins with morphine-like effects - can be elicited by belief. A placebo works only if the patient believes it's an effective medicine. Within strict limits, hope, it seems, can be transformed into biochemistry. — Carl Sagan

Bear in mind that since medications do not fix anything, they allow the underlying problem to continue uncorrected and actually accelerate. Meanwhile, new symptoms and new seemingly unrelated diseases are the inevitable consequence of this biochemical faux pas. Furthermore, drug side effects are the leading cause of death. NSAIDs as an example of only one group of medications, are fatally toxic to thousands of people each year by damaging joints, lungs, kidneys, eyes, hearts, and intestines. And they are covered by insurance.
You and your doctor have been screwed into believing every symptom is a deficiency of some drug or surgery. You've been led to believe you have no control, when in truth you're the one who must take control. Unfortunately, the modus operandi in medicine is to find a drug to turn off the damaged part that is producing symptoms. — Sherry A. Rogers

But love's not just the drug; it's also the dealer. Love wants love in return, am I right, Olly? Like drugs, the highs look divine, and I envy the users. But when the side effects kick in - jealousy, the rages, grief, I think, Count me out. Elizabethans equated romantic love with insanity. Buddhists view it as a brat throwing a tantrum at the picnic of the calm mind. — David Mitchell

If a drug failed as often and had as many side effects as western marriage, the FDA probably would not approve it. — Ron Davison