Dom

views updated May 29 2018

DOM

This drug's street name is STP. During the hippie drug culture of the Vietnam war period, its name referred to "serenity, tranquility, and peace." This was also a taunt and a spoof, since the initials were the same as a widely available oil additive that made an automobile engine run smoothly. The drug DOM is a member of a family of Hallucinogenic substances based on molecular additions to phenethylamine. This is a group of compounds that have structural similarities to the catecholamine-type Neurotransmitters, such as Norepinephrine, epinephrine, and Dopamine. While our bodies make these catecholamines from dietary amino acids, they do not make the chemical substitutions that produce a Psychedelic compound. Mescaline is the best and longest known of this family of Hallucinogens.

DOM is a synthesized compound that produces effects similar to mescaline and Lysergic Acid Di-Ethylamide (LSD), but the effects of DOM can last for fourteen to twenty hours, much longer than those of LSD. In addition, the effects of DOM have a very slow onset. Some of the initial street users of DOM had previous experience with LSD, a drug with a much more rapid onset. When the typical LSD-type effects were not found soon after taking DOM, some users took more drug, which led to a very intense and long-lasting psychedelic experience. Ironically, DOM was originally manufactured in the hope of producing a shorter, less-intense trip than LSD, which, it was thought, might be more useful and manageable in producing a period of insight and self-reflection in psychotherapy. This hope was never achieved.

(See also: Designer Drugs ; Dimethyltryptamine )

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Shulgin, A., & Shulgin, A. (1991). PIHKAL: A chemical love story. Berkeley, CA: Transform Press.

Daniel X. Freedman

R. N. Pechnick

Dom

views updated May 29 2018

Dom / däm/ • n. 1. a title prefixed to the names of some Roman Catholic dignitaries and Benedictine and Carthusian monks: Dom Bede Griffiths.2. Portuguese form of don1 (sense 2).

dom

views updated May 11 2018

dom
A. Pg. title of dignity;

B. title prefixed to the name of Benedictines and Carthusians XVIII. In A, — Pg. dom :- L. dominus master (spec. of a household), f. domus house. In B, shortening of L. dominus.

Dom

views updated May 29 2018

Dom a title prefixed to the name of some Roman Catholic dignitaries and Benedictine and Carthusian monks, coming from Latin dominus ‘master’.