Can Cockroaches Get High?

Cockroaches don’t have an endocannabinoid system, so the question of “can cockroaches get high?” is a myth. They can’t get high from marijuana because they don’t have any receptors for the psychoactive chemical. However, you can try to induce an intoxication effect on them using alcohol. To do this, simply pour a beer or water into the area where you find cockroaches. If any roaches swarm around the beer or water, the alcohol will quickly kill them.

While cockroaches can’t get high from alcohol, they can get a buzz from the sugars and hops found in beer. Even though they’re small and hard to catch, they’re resourceful insects. They can survive without their heads for up to a week, relying on other parts of their bodies. Moreover, cockroaches have been around since the dinosaurs, with fossils showing that they’ve existed for at least 300 million years.

In an attempt to prove whether cockroaches can get high, scientists have found that they can recognize the chemical ingredients in cocaine and other narcotics. The substances work by acting on serotonin receptors, which are present in insects. Cockroaches were found to improve their learning ability and entrainment when presented with cocaine, but higher concentrations were toxic for the insects. Interestingly, LSD reduces spiders’ web-building efficiency and ants’ foraging activity. These effects are evidence that cockroaches can be high, and they behave similarly to humans.

Pavlick and her colleagues used a 5-foot-square enclosure with four compartments each containing a Petri dish containing a narcotic. The roaches were then released into the larger enclosure, and the researchers tracked their movements with an infrared camera. Eight out of ten cockroaches were able to detect cocaine and Adderall.

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