Erowid is one of the first places to go if you're looking for information about the effects and uses of almost any psychoactive drug (prescription or not, legal, illegal, or anywhere in between) and you want to avoid You Fail Pharmacology Forever and Did Not Do the Research. It is one of the biggest databases of such information on the internet, and most databases contain enough information from enough points of view to provide a well-rounded view of the subject.
Tropes on this site:[]
- Accentuate the Negative: The tobacco vault. That said it's for fairly good reason: there are relatively few people for whom, pre-addiction development, tobacco has any pleasurable psychoactive effect.
- The Alcoholic: See the alcohol vault for a few stories....
- You Fail Pharmacology Forever: Both averted (the research and information, using the site for research, some user accounts) and played straight (some OTHER user accounts, usually resulting in said account being in the "Train Wrecks and Trip Disasters" section.)
- Awesome By Analysis: You! No, really, if you go here and look around to understand your viewpoint (whether you think Drugs Are Bad or Everybody Must Get Stoned or anything anywhere in between), rather than just mindlessly swallow what the government or your friends tell you, you are awesome.
- Butt Monkey: Some substances, and usually for good reason. Datura, crystal meth, PMA, and tobacco are some of the biggest.
- Did Not Do the Research: Averted. Merely going to the site and reading around is doing the research, and pretty much every vault has some extensive research in it, some more than others. Played straight in the case of some user accounts. Which usually leads nowhere good.
- Drugs Are Bad: Averted ("Glowing Experiences" and "Health" have some good stories) AND played heartbreakingly straight ("Addiction," "Difficult Experiences," "Train Wrecks and Trip Disasters,") sometimes in the same vault. The entire point of the site is neutral, nuanced information about drugs and substances and plants, so you will see everything from the most positive stories about drugs that are almost universally dangerous (e.g. someone squeeing over crystal meth) to the most negative rants on drugs that are generally helpful (e.g. someone ranting about how their roomie's psych meds didn't get them high). The best way to use the site is to review the information all neutrally, or, failing that, to assume that a drug with very few positive experiences or where almost all the positive experiences have major warnings may be "bad" for most users.
- Everybody Must Get Stoned: Cannabis in and of itself is the substance with the most positive experiences, health-related usages, etcetera, and the least addiction/habituation and train wrecks and trip disasters stories. Justified, because weed is arguably the safest psychoactive drug with the exception of certain individual health circumstances (such as some heart conditions or a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia).
- Off the Wagon: The "Addiction/Habituation" stories.
- Taught By Experience: The entire point of having user experiences in every vault.
- Tear Jerker: Some of the "Difficult Experiences" and "Train Wrecks and Trip Disasters" stories.