This document describes a new methodology for identifying potential uses of drugs based on analyzing language patterns in online drug forums. The author scraped discussion threads from the forum Lycaeum mentioning over 1000 substances. After preprocessing, a correlation matrix identified that LSD and MDMA were most commonly discussed. Keywords from discussions mentioning only LSD, only MDMA, or both were identified. These keywords revealed potential new drug combinations and contexts of use. The methodology provides a fast, ethical way to gather drug use data compared to previous methods. Limitations and opportunities for future extensions are also discussed.

1. New Methodology for Identification of Novel
Uses of Drugs Based on Language Pattern
Analysis in Lycaeum, an Online Forum for
Hallucinogens
David Yi
Bronx High School of Science

2. Introduction: Psychoactive Substances
- Usage of psychoactive substances
is determinantal to those who use
it, especially adolescents [1,2,3,4]
- Combined usage of different
psychoactive substances have new
and more potentially dangerous
effects than its components.
[2,3,5]
- The combined effects are poorly
understood and as a result, hard
to provide treatment for. [6,7]
- There is a need of a way to learn

3. Introduction: Prior Methods of Drug Data
GatheringAnimal Testing
- Flawed as results are not always reliable nor applicable to humans. [9]
Clinical Data
- Usage of data from hospitalizations and clinical trials.
- Flawed as it may be subjected to bias, small sample size, and tend to focus on
negative effects. Unethical to try potentially lethal/dangerous substances. [8,10,11]
Surveys
- Flawed as there is a large potential for exaggeration due to the sensitivity of the
topic of drugs (some may feel ashamed and put down false information)[11,12]
- Also a high risk of inaccurate sampling pool. [10]

4. Introduction: Internet Forums
- On the Internet, people are free to discuss their experiences with these, often
illegal, substances.
- Using the internet is also more time efficient compared to the other methods.
- Prior researchers have used social media to gather information on certain
substances such as Robitussin. [13]
- Specific drug forums where people describe their experiences openly. (Lycaeum).
These forums usually have no limits on the length of text and generally more
informative and less misleading compared to social media.

5. Problem and Hypothesis
- Many of the current methods of gathering data on psychoactive substance and
their non-medical usages tend to be flawed.
- However, there is a need to gather data on these substances, especially the
obscure potential combinations, due to the dangers and risks they have. There
may be extreme overdose or side effects that we are unaware of, both of which
will be difficult to treat without further information on them.
- Instead of physical methods of data gathering, the best way of gathering data may
be to use the Internet, specifically online forums, as a source of data.
- I decided to test this idea by using the drug forum, Lycaeum, to gather
information on the usages of the most discussed drug-pair on Lycaeum.

6. Methods: General Overview
Scrape Lycaeum
Preprocessing Steps
Generate Correlation Matrix
Analysis of Desired Text
Keywords Analysis

7. Methods: Scraping and Preprocessing
Scraping Lycauem
- Scraping is a process when text from a website is copied and stored onto a
computer.
- For every forum thread on Lycaeum, I ran code that went through all the
discussions and using a list of roughly a thousand substances, every time a
discussion mentioned one of those terms, the etire discussion was scraped.
Preprocessing
- The text from the online discussion was then processed so that it could be read by
the computer. Steps are convert to lowercase, remove stopwords (words that
contribute no information but are used for grammar conventions), tokenization,
spell-check, and lemmatize. At the end, only the important keywords to the
discussion would remain.

8. Methods: Preprocess and Correlation Matrix
- Tokenization is separating the text into it's word components, making it possible
to analyze word choices and frequency
- Lemmatization is converting to dictionary form. Otherwise, a computer would see
the same actions/concepts as different concepts. (ie. “running” and “run” are the
same action but a computer would see them differently).
Generating a Correlation Matrix
- Running through the text again, a matrix was generated every time two terms
were mentioned in the same discussion. The row and columns refer to the
position the term was on the list and the values refer to how many times they
were mentioned.

9. Methods: Analysis of Desired Text and Keywords
- From the correlation matrix, it was determined that the most commonly
discussed drug-pair on Lycaeum happened to be LSD and MDMA, more
commonly known as acid and ecstasy respectively.
- After retrieving all discussions that mention either of the two substances, the
most commonly mentioned keywords of the two substances were separated into
three groups: keywords mentioned in both, keywords mentioned in discussions
with LSD but not MDMA, and keywords mentioned in discussions with MDMA
but not LSD.
- Afterward, the keywords in each category was looked at and inspected.
- Terms that referred to other substances were identified and the potential

10. Keywords in the LSD-only category

11. Keywords in the MDMA-only category

12. Keywords found in both discussions

13. Table Explaining Terms in LSD
Token Significance
Levamisole Parasite Medication
Bacopa Herbal Supplement
Spores Mushroom Part
Copelandia Genus of Hallucinogenic
Mushroom

14. Table Explaining Terms in MDMA-only category
Token Significance
Anthemis nobilis Chamomile
Cicuta maculata Hemlock
Jimsonweed Flower from poisonous
Datura family
Carum caraway Spice, from same family as
Cicuta

15. Discussion
Interpretation of Results
- Most discussed drug-pair is MDMA and LSD with over 400 threads mention both
substances. Over 3000 mention LSD but not MDMA while over 1600 mention MDMA
but not LSD. The combined use of MDMA & LSD is known as candyflipping.
LSD-only Keywords
- Found terms that describe the context in which LSD was used – dormitory, gerbil.
- Found terms that describe other drugs like used with LSD – bacopa, Levamisole.
MDMA-only Keywords
- Found terms that describe drugs that alleviate negative effects – chamomile, ginseng,
caraway.
- Found terms that describe drugs that produce a combination known as pharmahuasca
– water hemlock, jimson weed.

16. Discovery
- My methodology has found several potential drug combinations involving both
LSD and MDMA. This warrants further research into each of them.
- Furthermore, the known information on LSD and MDMA agrees with data
gathered. The keywords found in LSD, such as dormitory suggests that LSD is
being used by teenagers and college students which has been shown to be true.
- My code can be also rerun with different search parameters. Gathering and
analyzing the information on most drug usages can be found and done within
hours, compared to the weeks needed in prior methods. In addition, this
methodology can be applied to not just toxicology but just about any sort of
study. Hopefully this may help progress the research of others in not just
academia but also of business and commercial groups.

17. Limitations and Future Extensions
- The preprocessing steps are not perfected. There are terms that are not words
appearing, which suggest some of them may be flawed.
- Furthermore, the text posted online may be written while intoxicated. As a result,
an algorithm should be added to judge the values of each post and see which
posts are supported and which are not.
- This project allows for several extensions including
- Creating a drug association chart – A chart to see which substances are used with each
other.
- Trend Analysis. By updating the correlation-matrix on a regular basis and see which substances
have become more discussed over time. Possible to see which substances are rising in popularity.

18. Conclusion
- My project has demonstrated the potential of internet forums as a data source and
provides a new algorithm that can gather information involving connections
between two terms. Hopefully others can adopt these methods and use them to
further their own research
- My project also offers a new way of gathering data on substance usage. Hopefully
in the future, this allows further restrictions on substances, potentially ending the
War on Drugs and reducing the impact of drugs on society.

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