If we asked you to name as many different types of drugs as possible, how far would you get? On Dutch-Smart, you regularly read about peyote (mescaline), magic mushrooms and magic truffles (psilocybin), ayahuasca (DMT), and, of course, cannabis. But of course, there is much, much more. Dominic Milton Trott knows this too; he’s a “simple family man” who has tried no fewer than 157 types of drugs to describe his experiences in the book The Drug Users Bible.
Some people experiment with drugs without having the faintest idea of what they’ll do to them. “It’ll be the trip of a lifetime,” a friend might tell you. But what good is that information, really? The father of two wanted to ensure that people trying different substances know exactly what they’re getting into before they put it in their mouth, nose, or veins.
Ayahuasca
The man, who is now well into his 60s, explained that it all started when he retired and began asking questions about the meaning of life. Dominic discovered the Amazonian brew ayahuasca on YouTube, a powerful hallucinogenic drink from South America made with Banisteriopsis Caapi and a DMT-containing plant such as Mimosa Hostilis. After some research, he traveled to Peru, where he took the substance during a shamanic ritual, which, in his own words, opened his eyes and “freed him from the chains of fear.”
What bothered him most was the lack of information about safe drug use. He noted, for example, that some types of drugs could be deadly. “I saw on forums that people were even dying or reporting that they had taken the wrong dose or didn’t know certain information beforehand. That can be deadly,” he says. “I started by creating a spreadsheet of my experience and my research. I carefully researched the substance (ayahuasca)—what the dose should be, and so on—and I documented it.”
Drug Bible
Then came the idea to write a book about all his experiences. “Why not?” he asked himself. “Why shouldn’t I bring safety information into the public consciousness if I’m capable of doing so?” And so it happened. Over the course of about 10 years, Dominic began researching, taking, experiencing, and documenting as many substances as he could find.
The former bank and IT employee scoured the world for psychedelics (magic mushrooms, LSD, ayahuasca, etc.), stimulants, anxiolytics, and sedatives, intoxicating depressants (including opioids), dissociatives (salvia divinorum), cannabinoids (cannabis, CBD, etc.), nootropics (Smart Drugs), oneirogens (Dream Herbs / etc.), and other types of drugs that are not classified.
Some of them were easy to obtain, others less so. Before May 2016, many of the research chemicals were legal in the UK, which meant Dominic could order them without any trouble. For the illegal types of drugs, he traveled to various parts of the world, where he could get them more easily.
The ‘best and worst drugs’
But what exactly are “the best drugs”? Well, if it were up to Dominic, there’s no single answer to that. “It depends on what you’re looking for at that moment.” For him personally, ayahuasca was the most transformative and revolutionary drug he tried. “When you view things from a different perspective and then return to the normal world, you have that knowledge and that perspective, and you carry it with you, and that’s what changes people,” he said in an interview. “That’s what changed me: seeing society and culture from the outside; once I returned to society, I changed my overall perspective.”
But it wasn’t all positive experiences. There were also a number of drugs that caused him both physical and mental suffering. For instance, he tried to get high on nutmeg (yes, that’s actually possible) and said it was one of the most terrible experiences of his life. “I woke up in the middle of the night and had to crawl on my hands and knees to get to the bathroom,” he says. “My fingers sank into the wood, and I pulled them out, and everything was spinning; my head hurt. I was sick for a week. It was terrifying. It was traumatic. These specific psychoactive substances are deadly and highly toxic. You’re essentially poisoning yourself.”
‘A magnifying glass for every fear’
Synthetic cannabinoids like Spice or Black Mamba, which cause a lot of problems in some parts of the world, were also terrible for Dominic. He described the high as a magnifying glass for every fear floating around in his brain. He recalled “lying in bed in the fetal position, hoping it would end soon.” At one point, he wondered if the trip would ever end. But it is precisely these moments that Dominic believes are so important, because they enable him to encourage others not to try it.
But was it worth it? “Absolutely,” says the now, in our view, award-winning drug expert. He is, however, convinced that governments and law enforcement agencies need to take a different approach to minimizing drug harm. He says he wouldn’t have had to compile his experiences into a book, because the relevant authorities should already have that information.” Clear language!
