3 Highly illegal narcotics produced naturally in your body

Vices By Eleanor Gray

Look at you, sitting there. Scum. Criminal. Druggie.

You may think of yourself as normal, law-abiding citizen, but you're actually a drug slinging hustler. Because right now, you have inside of you at least three very illegal drugs — a hallucinogen, a sedative and an opioid.

DMT, GHB and morphine, respectively.

These are all “endogenous drugs," meaning your body makes them naturally in small quantities for its own biochemical use. Yet, although they come straight out of your brain, all three are scheduled substances, meaning manufacturing, possessing or distributing them outside your own skin sack could land you a one-way ticket to the slammer. No case law has addressed this weird contradiction, but, if you read the law strictly, having these three inside you, even at low concentrations, could be nearly as illegal as having a basement full of chained-up Laotian boat people.

Let’s look at the three illegal drugs your body makes, what they might be doing in there, and what the penalties you might incur would be for possessing them outside your fleshy exoskeleton.

DMT

On the street, this drug, N,N-dimethyltryptamine, is a hallucinogen of the first order, and it acts like nuclear-powered LSD. If you smoke DMT, or drink it in the form of ayahuasca, it’s like lighting a pile of psychedelic C4 under your brainstem. You blast off on a cosmic neon roller coaster to another dimension, where you meet aliens who invite you onto their spaceship and communicate with you telepathically about better worlds waiting for us once we understand that love is nature’s glue, and then you open your eyes and you’re back in your lame apartment, watching Adult Swim.

But guess what, new jack? DMT is inside you right goddamn now! In fact, it’s also in plants, rats, rabbits and (probably) all mammals. In all these life forms, including your own, the amount of endogenous DMT produced is way too tiny to make you trip balls, but still, it’s ever-present nonetheless.

So, what’s it doing inside you? No one knows for sure, but the DMT molecule is actually very structurally similar to serotonin and melatonin, which both help you think clearly and sleep well, so researchers think it could be related to those processes. Some speculate that DMT is involved in dreaming, or is released when you die, creating the storied “white light” reported during near-death experiences. New-agers speculate that it’s produced in the brain’s pineal gland, which is linked to the vestigial “third eye” some lizards have and the mystical “third eye” of Hinduism, but that’s all conjecture and (possibly) gold-plated pyramid-level bullshit.

Although DMT is more accepted in Brazil and Spain, it’s been one of the most illegal drugs in America since 1970. If you’re found guilty of possessing non-bodily DMT, say hello to a year, at least, in prison.

Thankfully, you’ve got your stash tucked up deep in your meat-sack.

GHB

Gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, is a sedative, a sleep aid and a muscle enhancer used by bodybuilders and rave children alike. Its effects are similar to alcohol, but better, and include relaxation, social disinhibition, mood enhancement, slurred speech and motor control problems. You know, kinda like shooting high-quality Patron in your best friend’s basement.

But it’s extremely dangerous, especially when it’s combined with alcohol, since it depresses the nervous system and hinders your ability to wake up from a deep sleep. Passing out and choking on your own vomit are common occurrences for people who’ve dosed, or been dosed with GHB (So, yeah, a lot like tequila). But the scariest part isn’t the actual effects; it’s the nefarious purposes it can be put to. A serial killer in the U.K. was accused of using high doses to kill four people, and, in more moderate doses it induces a short-term coma, which is why it’s one of the most common date-rape drugs.

You don’t have much of it naturally floating in your brain though, so calm down — it’s not like you can date rape yourself or anything. But, healthy bodies do use GHB for lots of stuff, such as increasing good brain chemicals like dopamine, keeping us asleep and helping bears to hibernate. God loves a bear.

Despite its being natural, normal, and even necessary to normal bodily functioning, GHB is still illegal as all fuck. That seems ok if laws prevent date rapes, right? But also weird when you consider that it’s not only inside you, but also inside certain fermented foods, some fruit, and red wine. Officer, arrest that merlot!

If you went and bought a little dropper full of it from your drug dealer McKilla Die, possession of it could call for at least a $1,000 fine and a year in prison.

Morphine

Morphine is an opioid and one of the strongest painkillers. For soldiers riddled with shrapnel, old men shaking from heart attacks, and young women pushing babies out, it’s as delicious and soothing as angel spunk. It’s also highly addictive; and opioids — including morphine, hydrocodone and oxycodone— are involved in more 40 percent of accidental overdose deaths. This ain’t stuff to mess around with.

Unfortunately, you have no choice. This chemical too is inside you, often found in trace amounts in human and mouse urine. It’s released during exercise. It’s a neurotransmitter. And when the body’s production of endogenous morphine goes haywire, we develop chronic pain diseases because we can’t regulate our own hurtin’ without it.

Ever heard the word “endorphin”? That’s shorthand for endogenous morphine. It’s so vital to your basic functioning that the study of the morphine that’s naturally in your brain could lead to new drugs for pain, or even drugs that make you release more of your own natural morphine when you’re hurt.

Morphine isn’t quite as illegal as DMT and GHB; it’s a Schedule II drug, so if you were caught with morphine outside your body, you wouldn’t necessarily do prison time.

But, technically, if the feds put you in prison for making or possessing DMT or GHB or morphine, you’ll be bringing your own natural drugs in with you too, which technically gets you 20 more years in prison … during which you’d also have drugs in you … and so on. Pretty strange that we’ve outlawed the natural chemical byproducts our bodies make, considering we couldn’t even escape them if we tried, isn’t it?

We guess the government just really doesn’t like to admit that you are made of drugs. It’s not just these three we mentioned — there’s also evidence your body makes two other powerful hallucinogens, 5-me0-DMT and bufotenin too. You burnout, you. What’s more, molecules like endocannabinoids, melatonin, and adrenaline are also always in your body. They’re all drugs, just legal ones.

Of course, DMT, GHB and morphine can be abused. They do real harm. But they are, at base, healthy, necessary, natural molecules. Without DMT, GHB and morphine, your body wouldn’t be the same, and you wouldn't be you.