Elvish Yadav.
Credit: X/@ElvishYadav and iStock Photo
Elvish Yadav, a YouTuber and reality TV show winner of Big Boss OTT, was recently booked by the Noida Police for allegedly using snake venom at a rave party.
The police found 20 ml of snake venom, additionally they recovered five cobras, a python, two two-headed snakes, and a rat snake.
Despite being extremely dangerous and life threatening, snake venom is smuggled and often taken as a recreational drug.
The use of snake venom as a medicine and the changes that occur after consuming it have been explained in a 2018 study titled 'Snake Venom Use as a Substitute for Opioids: A Case Report and Review of Literature' that was published in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine.
According to the research paper, the researchers monitored a patient aged 33 who was addicted to alcohol and opioids for 15 years. Later, out of curiosity he tried snake venom in the form of drug.
The study states that "the snake bite was associated with jerky movements of the body, blurring of vision, and unresponsiveness, blackout for an hour".
"However, after waking up, he experienced a heightened arousal and sense of well-being, which lasted for 3–4 weeks, which according to the patient was more intense that the state of high experienced till that time with any dose of alcohol or opioids."
Based on their intoxication level, different types of snakes are considered for their venom as drug; graded as mild, moderate or severe form. The snake bites are taken either on the tongue or the feet which later gives the "experience associated with happiness, grandiosity and excessive sleepiness, as explained by the patient."
The majority of the reports did not mention any withdrawal symptoms related to snake bites; however, in some cases, patients experienced the phenomena of "tolerance" and began using snake venom as recreational drug often.