The Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine recently reported the incredible case of a man who had been getting poisonous snakes to bite him on his tongue, because the usual narcotics no longer gave him the buzz he was looking for.

Cobra venom contains one of the most potent neurotoxins on Earth, with the amount injected in a single bite being enough to 20 adults and even an elephant. These facts only make the story of one Rajasthan opioid addict almost impossible to believe. He told researchers at the Institute of Medical Education and Research, in Chandigarh, India, that he had been subjecting himself to snake bites on the tongue for months, in order to get the buzz he no longer felt using regular narcotics. He did so on the advice of a friend who had been getting snake bites for years, and insisted that the practice is quite common in his community.

Read More »

Steve Ludwin, a 42-year-old snake obsessed rocker from California, is one of a just a handful of people who regularly inject venom from the world’s deadliest snakes into their bloodstream, in the belief that it will make them immune to it.

Around 100,000 people around the world die from snake bites every year, and another 250,000 are permanently disabled, but these statistics don’t seem to scare Steve Ludwin. Every week for the past 23 years he has been injecting a venom cocktail from the world’s most dangerous snakes, trying to train his antibodies to resist the poison. By gradually increasing the quantity and frequency of the injections, he believes one day he will become immune not only to snake poison, but other viruses as well. Steve currently has a collection of 28 potentially deadly reptiles in his home, but he is always on the lookout for new additions, scouring European countries for missing specimens and attending snake conventions. On injection days, he expertly milks his snakes for a few milligrams of venom and visits an immunologist to have his killer shot. Within minutes, the muscles in his arm quadruple in size for around 24 hours, as his white blood cells struggle to fight off the poison. The doses he can take these days would kill the average person, but Steve usually goes to a rock concert right after the injection…

Read More »