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“What better time to take drugs than a hot April night at home, with the whole weekend stretching out ahead and not an inkling of pressing demands in sight,” says Jennifer*, 28, an occupational therapist from north London who has been taking psychedelics from self-isolation and having video calls with her friends.
“I joined one surprise birthday party while high with five or six of us on chat, then later I joined a bigger party with more Zoomers,” says Jennifer, who was upfront with her mates about what she’d taken. “They laughed and enjoyed slowly watching me unravel.”
No one else on the calls was using drugs, she says, but everyone was drinking. A lot. All that excess free time and the monotony of quarantine life are factors, she thinks. “I think it’s a good time to get high more at the moment – but only if it’s coming from a place of curiosity and you feel grounded and mentally okay.”
Paula*, 42, a writer from north-east London, and her boyfriend Will, 40, a university administrator, have also felt more inclined to do drugs in lockdown – for pleasure and therapeutic use. “There’s more need for both of those in this situation,” says Paula, who adds that acid has felt specifically well-suited to making sense of the current climate.
“Acid plugs you into the beauty and hilarity of the world, and also enables you to explore big and scary notions, as does MDMA in a similar but softer way,” says Paula. “There’s this sense of heightened and intensified reality anyway, so being in altered states sort of aligns you with that.” Unlike Jennifer, the couple haven’t