Indian duo resort to ‘kissing’ cobras for venom high

Two Indian men who’ve seemingly become resistant to opioids after taking them for over a decade have found a way, which is bizarre at best and lethal at worst, to get a high - kissing cobras.

The neurotoxin that a king cobra can emit in a single bite is enough to kill 20 people or one elephant, according to National Geographic.

Yet, that has not dissuaded the pair from trying to get snakes to bite them on the tongue in the hope that the poison would act as their much-craved fix.

According to local media, the duo, from Rajasthan, are two of just four cases of people using venom in India. Reports said the two men started ‘making out’ with the reptiles after they found they’d become resistant to any form of opioid, which they have been addicted for 15 years.

They have now become focus of a study at the Chandigarh’s Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research.

“The study was undertaken to make clinicians aware about such substance abuse for recreational purposes as not much medical literature is available,” said one of the researchers, Sandeep Grover.

Their case history has been included in the ‘Snake venom use as a substitute for opioids: A case report and review of literature’ report published in the ‘Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine’.

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