Music doesn’t make me high: Expert debunks digital drugs

Praxius

Praxius

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Music doesn?t make me high: Expert debunks digital drugs - - thechronicleherald.ca


Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, says the agency has informed parents about teens’ interest in i-dosing. (AP)

MONTREAL — Are kids really, actually, getting high these days by listening to MP3s on their computers?

The phenomenon of so-called digital drugs — or i-dosing — has been spreading like wildfire around the Internet and the international press in recent weeks.

Apparently a set of headphones and a trippy digitally crafted song is all you need to achieve a state of imaginary ecstasy not unlike the one from consuming illicit drugs.

But here’s the assessment from scientific experts: Pssst, kid, ever heard of the placebo effect?

It’s apparently nothing more than an acoustic illusion and there is no scientific basis to prove the purported effects of i-dosing.

Binaural, or two-tone, technology — created by playing a different tone in each ear to create the auditory illusion of a beat — has been around since its discovery in 1839.

The claim is that the sounds serve to alter one’s brain waves and, by extension, a person’s mental state.

Not so, says Robert Zatorre.

"It doesn’t really do anything to the brain," said Zatorre, professor of neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal.

"It does the same thing to the brain if you’re standing looking at a pendulum swinging back and forth. You get stimulation from the right, then from the left. That’s about it."

It’s unclear just how widespread the phenomenon is, but video file-sharing site YouTube is absolutely teeming with videos of teens trying i-doses.

Some swear by its effects — while countless others mock the so-called users of digital drugs as naive suckers.

Websites that sell the songs for as much as $20 a CD make extraordinary claims of what the songs will do, and the comments show that a song can bring about anything, from relaxation to concentration to hallucination, in different people.

"These are all contradictory stories: the same stimulus can’t on one hand make you relaxed, on the other hand give you hallucinations, on the other hand help your concentration," Zatorre said.

So if a simple audio recording supposedly elicits this euphoric response, what exactly are people feeling?

Zatorre said some may be consuming actual drugs and attributing it to the music, while others might simply be getting fooled the old-fashioned way.

"What I think they’re actually feeling is a psychological suggestion or a placebo effect," Zatorre said.

The Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse said it hadn’t done any substantial research on the phenomenon, but one of its researchers was keeping an eye on it.

Still, stories about i-dosing have cropped up around the world in recent weeks, all of them leading back to the same Oklahoma City suburb — Mustang — where i-dosing first made headlines.

"Digital drugs at Mustang High School have experts warning of slippery slope," cautioned one Oklahoma news website.

Mustang, a town of 13,000, was where reports first surfaced of students who’d tried i-dosing. Some apparently wound up in the principal’s office exhibiting symptoms like they’d consumed drugs.

When the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control took a closer look last year, that bunch of kids turned out to be "one or two" who had exhibited nothing more than a headache.

There hasn’t been a single incident since September. But the school still sent a letter to parents because it suspected curious teens might flock to an easily available fad.

"We still do warn parents that this is out there, even though it doesn’t really do anything," narcotics bureau spokesman Mark Woodward told The Canadian Press.

"If these kids are exploring getting a digital high — that means they’re probably already getting a high, and that should be your bigger red flag."

Woodward has been interviewed about the phenomenon by reporters from London, England, to Bogota, Colombia. But Woodward thinks the trend is more likely to fizzle than become a fad.

Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst based in London, Ont., says the trend is much like alternative medicine: "There are those who swear by it and claim it’s absolutely true but it’s not anything that’s been accepted by mainstream culture."
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:confused5: If these kids think they're getting a high from a couple of tones on a song, then they've never gotten high before..... and those who believe this is a real concern are high themselves.

I remember when I worked at a local grocery store and saw some 12-13 year old kids walk out with some non-alcoholic beer, acting all cool and passing them around with one another, then acting like total idiots like they were actually getting drunk after a couple of sips..... this is no different.... just a bunch of dummies trying to impress their friends.... acting like they're getting high off of sounds, then their friends try and act like they're all screwed up too just to fit in...... it's a crock and I can't even believe a school board or even buddy in the above photo would take this crap seriously enough to send out letters to parents.

$20 a CD?

There's a sucker born everyday it would seem.

These kids claim they're getting a high?

My bet is that these kids wouldn't know what "High" was if it was injected into their ass.

"If these kids are exploring getting a digital high — that means they’re probably already getting a high, and that should be your bigger red flag."

^ No.... if they're already getting a high from something else, then they wouldn't waste their time on something as stupid as this.
 
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karrie

karrie

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Music to affect state of mind via meditation... nothing new. As I pointed out on another forum, I started my kids on digital sleeping meds from Wal-Mart from the first day they were born.... it's called a white noise generator. lol.
 
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AnnaG

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I think the guy is forgetting stuff or maybe even purposefully omitting stuff. Different tones have different effects on humans. Otherwise those shrieking things people put out to discourage teens from coagulating in certain spots would not work. The teens are succeptable while adults aren't because only the teens can detect the tone from these things.

karrie said:
Music to affect state of mind via meditation... nothing new. As I pointed out on another forum, I started my kids on digital sleeping meds from Wal-Mart from the first day they were born.... it's called a white noise generator. lol.
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That, too. :)
 
Praxius

Praxius

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Well yeah, calm blue ocean and nature sounds are one thing.... getting in a relaxed state of mind is one thing.... meditation is also another thing..... but claiming to trip out or getting a high over a sequence of sounds?

If that were actually possible, doesn't anybody here think this would have been a bigger, more wide-spread issue for many years past then it is now?

Don't you think Ozzy would have been all up on that back in the 70's/80's during the time people thought Satan was playing in the background of his albums? I'm sure all sorts of bands and artists would have incorporated this stuff into their albums and songs to trip people out into buying more of their music, going to their concerts..... heck, the government would have probably broadcast these sounds on TV and on the Radio to control us...... At least then that would explain people wearing tin foil hats.... but seriously.

You know.... maybe I should go and test these little sounds out and get back to you all on what actually happens.... afterall, I've tried all sorts of trippy drugs over the years..... I, along with a few others in these forums would know the difference between a high and some annoying sound in your ears.

Hmmmm......
 
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AnnaG

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Praxius said:
Well yeah, calm blue ocean and nature sounds are one thing.... getting in a relaxed state of mind is one thing.... meditation is also another thing..... but claiming to trip out or getting a high over a sequence of sounds?
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So Mozart really didn't enjoy making music as much as he said he did? Beethoven was deaf when he wrote most of his, he said he enjoyed the feel of the vibrations. Vibrations are all that tones are, as far as we know.

If that were actually possible, doesn't anybody here think this would have been a bigger, more wide-spread issue for many years past then it is now?
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Everyone's different. So I think people just need to find the particular sequence of tones that will do that for them. :) I get trippy just from hearing Carlos Santana play guitar sometimes. Same with Jesse Cook and JJ Cale. Bruce Hornsby can do the same to me with piano tones, as could Oscar Petersen. Same thing with the violins of Bond and Vanessa Mae. I don't hallucinate, but I feel euphoric.
 
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