Neptune stands for drugs and in 2024 humanity can’t live without its drugs. In the age of never-ending pain there’s a never-ending demand for its miracle pain-killers. The medicine chest, fridge and kitchen cupboard are full of Neptune’s wonder cures but a trip to the doctor can see you prescribed a medication that ends up an addiction.
Generally speaking, drugs are aimed at relieving pain and suffering, but they don’t cure. When you stop the drug, the problem comes straight back.
It’s actually difficult to distinguish a medicine from a drug. That’s because medicines are drugs that are used to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent a disease and drugs are such things as stimulants, narcotics, and hallucinogens. And it’s easy to become addicted to a medicine or a drug. Opioids that are extremely addictive are prescribed freely and considered medicine.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), it’s estimated that between 26.4 million and 36 million people abuse opioids worldwide. In America there are 2 million people suffering from substance abuse related to prescription opioids.
It’s easy to become addicted to pain management substances like Oxycontin and Percocet. Withdrawal symptoms include intense cravings, irritability, stress and anxiety, loss of appetite, stomach cramps, sweating, muscle aches, fever, vomiting and diarrhea.
Amphetamine – speed – is a central nervous system stimulator. It gives a quick artificial boost to energy and confidence levels and the powers of concentration. After a speed trip people are usually exhausted and depressed.
The most popular amphetamine is methylphenidate aka Ritalin.
Barbiturates are commonly used to end life. They cause the activity of the brain and nervous system to slow down. They’re used medicinally in small doses to relieve insomnia. They can be used as anaesthesia, to make you sleep through surgery. An overdose is fatal. They’re used in physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.
The golden age of drugs
Human beings are pill-poppers. They down tranquillizers, sedatives, hypnotics, anti-histamines and analgesics to ease the pain and solve problems but in the 1960s many drugs attained recreational status.
Cannabis aka hashish, marijuana, grass and dope produces altered states of consciousness. Long time users live in a fog
Cocaine is a central nervous system stimulant. It gives an instant sense of wellbeing: an enhanced feeling of confidence and power but it’s all an illusion. Ecstasy is a stimulant.
LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) and magic mushrooms are hallucinogens.
Heroin is an opiate. It comes from the opium poppy. So does morphine and codeine. It’s easily available in many over the counter preparations such as aspirin. Methadone is a synthetic opiate. Heroin gives an artificial, temporary sense of contentment.
In the 1960s back street chemists were manufacturing a limitless variety of chemical combinations into designer drugs and the market was huge.
That’s when poppers, a slang term referring to recreational drugs belonging to the alkyl nitrite family of chemical compounds, became popular. When inhaled they produce mild euphoria, warmth and dizziness. Amyl nitrite was a disco favorite. It still is.
Solvents such as glue, rubber cements, type writer correction fluid, nail polish, petrol, paint, paint thinners, cigarette lighter fluid, cleaning fluids, aerosols and fire extinguishers were inhaled to get high. Solvents and nitrites are depressants.
Tranquilizers come from chemicals known as benzodiazepines. They’re the most frequent used mood-altering agents. Millions of people regularly take tranquilizers. The 60s saw a benzodiazepines glut. Librium was followed by the more powerful valium.
Valium was the most prescribed drug of the 1970s. The tranquilizer of choice was taken by women to ease the tension of their repressed rage and anger known as anxiety. Men stupefied themselves on alcohol and women did the same thing using valium. Valium puts out the raging fire in the mind.
Tobacco, among other things, contains tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide. It’s addictive and has bad-health consequences. Cigarette packets carry warnings that smoking can kill.
Vaping is the new smoking. It involves a small hand-held device such as an e-cigarette or vape pen to inhale a mist of nicotine and flavoring. Vaping heats tiny particles out of a liquid.
Caffeine is a chemical compound that stimulates the central nervous system. It can be found in coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate and soft drinks. An early morning cup of coffee gives a kick start to the central nervous system. Young people easily got addicted to the chemical kick they get from Coca Cola.
Chocolate is a great sex substitute. It’s a heavenly food and the word chocolate means ‘food of the gods’. Of course, drinking tea and coffee and eating chocolate is not drug taking.
Life problems like unemployment, poverty and social isolation can lead to drug taking. Psychological causes include lack of confidence, low self-esteem, fear, anxiety, vagueness and feelings of worthlessness. People tend to drift into addiction over a period of time, but once trapped in Neptune’s web of chemical intrigue there’s no easy way out. The body’s chemical environment influences the mind and drug addiction is often a long, deliberate act of self-destruction.
Neptune’s drugs are stupendous at stupefying people.
Neptune’s drug culture in 2024
In 2024 the drug business is massive. Its legal and illegal profits are higher than high. Drug lords and investors are delirious. Some countries rely on drugs for their economic prosperity. Drug smuggling is big business.
Drug dealers are usually addicts who act as agents for the drug traffickers. Drug traffickers are usually non-users who are in the drug game for money. Drug gangs steal to support their drug habits.
Some countries have decriminalized the use of some drugs and there’s a push to make the consumption of drugs a public health issue rather than a criminal one.
In 2001 Portugal decriminalised all drugs and introduced robust drug treatment and harm reduction programmes.
In 2020, Oregon became the first state in the US to decriminalise possession of small amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, opioids and LSD, but in September 2024 its drug decriminalizing experiment came to an end when possessing small amounts of hard drugs again became a crime.
In June 2022 Thailand was the first country in Asia to fully decriminalise cannabis but 18 months later it was again criminalised due to its misuse having a negative impact on children
In March 2024 Malawi’s government legalised the production of a particular strain of cannabis for some industrial and medicinal purposes.
In April 2024 a German law decriminalised possession of up to 25gm of cannabis for personal use and up to 50gm grown in the home.
In 2023, 34 countries retain the death penalty for drug offences and there were at least 467 drug-related executions. That doesn’t include the dozens, if not hundreds believed to have taken place in in China, Vietnam, and North Korea. There were at least 3000 people on death row for drug offences in at least 19 countries.
In 2025-26 millions of people are having their daily lives ruined by drugs and with Saturn conjunction Neptune in the sky the numbers are sure to rise. It forecasts a drug epidemic and major events involving pain relief, public health care safety measures and the regulation of drugs.
The liver plays a key role in the metabolism of drugs. It carries out phase 1 and phase 2 reactions to chemically alter drugs, making them more water-soluble so before taking a drug it pays to assess the functional status of your liver by checking out Jupiter in your birth chart.
Astrology for Aquarius – sharing our knowledge
