[HN Gopher] Psilocybin 'promising' for depression
___________________________________________________________________
Psilocybin 'promising' for depression
Author : aluket
Score : 279 points
Date : 2021-04-15 05:25 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| Geee wrote:
| Are psychedelics connected to dreaming? I mean, maybe dreams are
| supposed to somehow reset or recalibrate brains, but on some
| people it's not working for some reason. Also, there's a
| connection of what you eat and what you dream, so my wild
| hypothesis is that gut bacteria is responsible for recalibrating
| your brain during sleep. There's also quite strong evidence for
| correlation between gut bacteria and mental health. Somehow these
| are connected. Also, exercise, especially running has a mental
| health effect. Maybe it just mixes your gut bacteria.
| elisaado wrote:
| The following is anecdotal, but many people report more vivid
| dreams after recreational use of LSD.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| > In a phase 2, _double-blind_ , randomized, controlled trial
|
| It seems like you _can 't_ blind the participants in this case?
| It should be obvious if you're getting the treatment because
| psilocybin is a hallucinogen, unless they're giving such a small
| dose that it reliably doesn't cause any hallucinations?
|
| This is important because most (70-80%) of the effect of existing
| anti-depressants is known to be placebo, and there's already
| concern that you can't blind in regular anti-depressant trials
| because the participant might know they receive treatment due to
| feeling the side effects of the drug (e.g. insomnia). The problem
| of being unable to blind participants would seem to be magnified
| in a psilocybin trial.
| queuep wrote:
| I'm not an expert in this, but if they gave 25mg psilocybin
| (not purified) you would probably not hallucinate (of my
| readings in the reddit posted in another comment here). But I'm
| not sure if its possibly to purify it, and I'm not sure what
| effects 25mg of "purified" psilocybin would have.
| david_allison wrote:
| > It seems like you can't blind the participants in this case?
| It should be obvious if you're getting the treatment because
| psilocybin is a hallucinogen, unless they're giving such a
| small dose that it reliably doesn't cause any hallucinations?
|
| An active placebo can be used. For example: a high dose of
| methylphenidate and hallucinogen-naive adults.[0]
|
| [0] Griffiths, et al. (2006)
| https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2006/griffith...
| kodah wrote:
| I see articles about curing depression from time to time and I
| have hope but not much. I have lived most of my life as a
| depressed kid. The most jolting realization that I had as an
| adult was that around sixth grade I was contemplating suicide
| without knowing what that word meant. Since then, life has been
| like a long, slow death march. If you asked most of my friends
| they'd likely tell you that I'm really happy, funny, quirky, and
| eccentric but inside I battle the demons of my own mind. I've let
| those demons shape my understanding of the world before and each
| day they don't these days is a choice. I've used cognitive
| behavioral therapy as a tool to do battle against them, I take
| daily melatonin, and I take long vacations but those things are
| coping mechanisms. The days I am hit with depression that wants
| to keep me anchored to my bed are the days I really go to war. I
| have to keep my mouth shut more because whatever I say on those
| days will almost assuredly be tainted with tinges of, _I hate
| myself and am discontented with the world_ tones. I have to
| pressure myself to focus. When the day is over I throw myself on
| the couch and hope that tomorrow that veil is lifted.
| marsrover wrote:
| As someone who also struggled with depression from an early
| age, taking mushrooms cured it.
|
| I haven't taken them in over a decade and I did get in a funk
| during the pandemic, but the difference between the day before
| taking mushrooms and the days after are like night and day.
|
| I would bet money that it would help you. If you decide to try
| them out, all you need is 3.5 grams and someone experienced to
| take them with you or at least sit with you. Oh, and put on
| some Shpongle.
| splithalf wrote:
| But who knows what will happen to these subjects 50 years from
| now! There could be blood clots! /s
| Gatsky wrote:
| The study was just published in the most prestigious medical
| journal in the world [1].
|
| Whatever you think of the study, this is rather significant. If
| you told me even 2 years ago there would be a randomised trial of
| magic mushrooms in NEJM, I would not have believed it for even a
| second.
|
| One point not to miss is that they screened 1000 patients to come
| up with the study population of 59.
|
| Nevertheless, I consider the study result quite promising,
| considering patients only had 2 doses of psilocybin.
|
| [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994
| ButtSpark69 wrote:
| "If you told me even 2 years ago there would be a randomised
| trial of magic mushrooms in NEJM, I would not have believed it
| for even a second."
|
| In a lot of ways, that's completely depressing for how slowly
| we've come as a species.
| [deleted]
| Fricken wrote:
| "The species" has been using psychedelics in religious
| ceremonies for a long time. We're just out of the loop.
| sneak wrote:
| I agree wholeheartedly, Mister ButtSpark69. For all our
| civilization's progress, we still have so far to go.
| refurb wrote:
| Wait until you learn some history about how regressed!
| o_p wrote:
| Maybe some mushrooms could help you with that
| mrwww wrote:
| 2 doses of psilocybin, vs 6 weeks of SSRI's..! They also seem
| to cite a big difference in lasting happiness, altough that
| wasnt the focus of the study.
| varispeed wrote:
| You can clearly see why psilocybin is illegal. Follow the
| money... I hope one day the companies and people behind this
| will go to jail.
| philshem wrote:
| Due to the stigma of psychedelics, there has been a long gap in
| research, which may have started with 1962 "Good Friday
| Experiment"
|
| > Almost all of the members of the experimental group reported
| experiencing profound religious experiences, providing
| empirical support for the notion that psychedelic drugs can
| facilitate religious experiences. One of the participants in
| the experiment was religious scholar Huston Smith, who would
| become an author of several textbooks on comparative religion.
| He later described his experience as "the most powerful cosmic
| homecoming I have ever experienced".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment
| [deleted]
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| The definition of treatment resistant depression is one of the
| filters that narrows down the list. A subject must have tried
| at least two different antidepressants for a certain length of
| time and within the last few years, in addition to therapy. So,
| someone who has taken antidepressants for years doesn't
| automatically qualify.
| varispeed wrote:
| This is crazy. It's like cart manufacturers lobbied
| government that anyone who want to buy a car would first have
| to use a horse and a cart and only be allowed to buy a car if
| the cart and a horse causes significant problem. Am I the
| only one seeing corruption here?
| rincebrain wrote:
| If your attempted argument is "X helps people who are not
| helped by other existing treatments", then limiting your
| selection criteria to those who have tried several existing
| treatments and not found success seems to follow logically.
|
| (Though the study's construction seems to fail at that
| argument, since the claim is that all patients, both those
| given the psilocybin and those given the SSRI, improved
| markedly.)
| varispeed wrote:
| When I wrote that, I had in mind a situation in my
| country that you can be eligible for private medical
| cannabis prescription if you try at least two other
| treatments and you find them ineffective. On the surface
| it doesn't sound too sinister, but for example, when it
| comes to chronic pain the drugs that are being given are
| simply nasty. I still have nightmares about the side
| effects that I experienced (vivid hallucinations,
| suicidal thoughts, derealization and more). Given how
| ubiquitous cannabis is, people with various problems
| often find, including chronic pain, that it helps
| massively and unfortunately they cannot bypass going
| through hell just to get prescription for what helps.
| They cannot even suggest that they look for medicinal
| cannabis as they still may be branded as drug seekers and
| be denied treatment altogether.
| rincebrain wrote:
| I can understand the basis for those requirements in
| general (e.g. for antidepressants, doctors generally
| won't start you with an MAOI or a TCA, they'll start you
| with an SSRI or SNRI or similar, then try another one if
| that doesn't work, then maybe resort to TCAs if a couple
| of those don't work, then maybe try an MAOI if a couple
| of _those_ don't work), though I would agree that having
| a hard requirement of trying several other drugs first
| with the toxicity profile of cannabis seems...overly
| harsh at best. (Especially labeling people drug seekers
| for it - though they might be gun-shy after the fun with
| opioids and worried about finding a new epidemic of
| cannabis addicts, which seems...unlikely.)
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Studies are being designed to reduce the possibility that a
| patient just didn't respond well to one medication but
| instead shows a general lack of improvement from
| antidepressants. The goal is to know that the patient
| improved from psilocybin, specifically. One other problem
| with this stacked definition of treatment resistance is
| that doctors are going to be coerced to always try multiple
| antidepressants and guinea pig the hell out of patients.
| Doctors are going to refuse initial psilocybin treatment
| and only use it as a last resort because the studies are
| going to show that treatment resistance is necessary. Even
| worse will be if doctors are coerced by regulators and
| medical institutes to strictly follow their protocol. And
| this only includes doctors who agree to add psilocybin to
| their treatment programs. A lot of doctors will resist
| using it, claiming "unearned wisdom is dangerous wisdom"
| and so forth. The "unearned wisdom" claim is based on the
| indoctrinated belief that a patient must undergo many hours
| of therapy and slowly peel layers of experience in order to
| truly understand, whereas psilocybin offers a shortcut.
|
| For these reasons and others, I believe that the vast
| majority of depressed people who haven't healed from
| traditional methods ought not pursue clinical studies as a
| viable pathway to psilocybin-assisted therapy.
| loceng wrote:
| "One point not to miss is that they screened 1000 patients to
| come up with the study population of 59."
|
| I'd be curious how many 10,000s if not 100,000s of people
| pharmaceutical companies go through, along with
| changing/crafting their selection criteria to keep out
| people/symptoms they know have more/strong "side"/harmful
| effects with, until they get acceptable looking results;
| propaganda using truth - "Misleading with true fact" -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lls_2tfWcUI
| bigfudge wrote:
| >they screened 1000 patients to come up with the study
| population of 59
|
| Note that while not ideal this is completely normal for any
| early stage drug trial. Most drugs get licenced based on data
| in which the trials would have excluded 90%+ of the typical
| clinical population. This is certainly true in depression where
| most drug trials will exclude patients with comorbid MH
| conditions, and often exclude them for "too many previous
| episodes". But it's also true in physical health (e.g. asthma).
|
| I'm sure it's even harder when recruiting for an RCT in
| psychedelics though. A friend was working on clinical
| applications of MDMA about 15 years ago and a stipulation of
| the ethics board was that her participants had to have taken
| MDMA at least 3 times before, but not more than 10 times. Not
| easy to recruit for that study!
| alexf95 wrote:
| I feel like there will also people that have way too many
| prejudices towards these kinds of "drugs" because that's simply
| how we learned it. "Don't take drugs kids".
|
| These studies are very helpful especially when shared over
| general media, but the consumption has to be supervised and
| controlled to not have overdoses and ruin the whole reputation
| again. It should be treated like any other anti-depressant, since
| they are just "drugs" in the end
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I feel like there will also people that have way too many
| prejudices towards these kinds of "drugs" because that's simply
| how we learned it. "Don't take drugs kids".
|
| At least on Internet forums, the trend seems to be the
| opposite. Many commenters are very pro-psychedelic but anti-
| medication these days.
|
| It's important to remember that psilocybin may be promising,
| but it's still not a great long-term treatment option. Not only
| have they not been studied beyond a few doses, but we have a
| lot of anecdotal evidence that excessive and sustained
| consumption of psychedelics seems to lead people into
| increasingly weird thoughts.
|
| It seems a little bit can open people's minds in ways that make
| therapy more effective, but too much openness to new ideas can
| start to open the door to increasingly weird thoughts:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psyched...
|
| Of course we don't have any controlled trials about long-term
| psychedelic use and likely won't any time soon due to the
| ethical concerns, but it's worth mentioning that these are not
| a magic bullet for sustained depression treatment. Traditional
| therapy is still the way to go.
| quchen wrote:
| > excessive and sustained consumption of psychedelics seems
| to lead people into increasingly weird thoughts
|
| We have lots of _clinical_ evidence even that that's the case
| for a lot of medication, which is why we don't usually
| administer excessively and sustained, but carefully and
| controlled.
| dannyw wrote:
| We need to change the message from "don't take drugs" to "if
| you choose to take drugs, take them responsibly".
|
| Start with low doses, don't mix (alcohol,benzo,opiates), and
| remember that unless taken therapeutically, drugs should be an
| occasional party thing and not an escapism for life.
|
| It's also totally fine to not do drugs. I'm going sober (except
| a beer or two) for an indefinite period of time, just because
| that's what I feel like.
|
| Maybe I'll go on a mushroom trip for new years eve, who knows,
| but drugs shouldn't define your life.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > We need to change the message from "don't take drugs" to
| "if you choose to take drugs, take them responsibly".
|
| The phrase for this is "harm reduction" and it has been
| around for a few decades in the pro-drug communities.
|
| The challenge is that harm reduction material is largely
| targeted at avoiding overdoses or fatal combinations as you
| mentioned, which can give users a false sense of confidence
| about their ability to avoid addiction.
|
| I've watched a couple close acquaintances slowly decline over
| time due to what they thought was responsible drug use. You
| can do all the right things and still end up addicted to and
| dependent upon addictive drugs. Fortunately they were both
| able to afford rehabilitation programs that got them back on
| track.
|
| I visited one of them in the rehab program. The price tag was
| high so selection bias was obviously at play, but it was
| interesting to see that every person there was also an adult
| professional who thought they were smart enough and self-
| educated enough about drugs to avoid succumbing to addiction,
| which was clearly not the case.
|
| I don't have any answers or solutions to the topic, but I do
| know that addiction is a risk that most addicts seem to
| downplay at the start of their experiences. Few people go
| into drug habits expecting to become dependent.
|
| Perhaps more interesting is the uptick in people addicted to
| psychedelics, partially driven by the growing perception that
| they're not addictive. It seems that these patients aren't
| addicted in the traditional sense of becoming dependent, but
| they get hooked on the escapism aspect or the idea that
| they're just one or two trips away from a major epiphany. Not
| all of the rewiring that takes place in these experiences is
| necessarily in a healthy direction. It can happen, so people
| should at least be aware of it.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > drugs should be an occasional party thing
|
| Please don't! If all this research thought us anything, it's
| that powerful substances are emotional surgery. Not something
| to attempt in an unsafe environment.
| quchen wrote:
| On the contrary, parties can be very safe environments.
| Much like there are better and worse places to drink, there
| are better and worse places for taking other drugs. A lot
| of factors play into the setting. Music is very often a
| plus, feelings of freedom, being outside, good weather,
| like-minded people - relaxed open air festivals make for a
| good example.
| goodpoint wrote:
| You are missing my point. That's exactly what I'm saying:
| a trusted environment with trusted people VS people
| taking random substances in a random disco.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Just show how much medicine is derived from naturally occuring
| molecules. Shrooms, flower or chemlab.. same same.
| tzury wrote:
| I was not able to speak to my father, let alone staying in the
| same room were he was, for about 26 years (~18yr old till
| recently ~44yr).
|
| The background for this was my choice of leaving an ultra
| orthodox jewish community and going on my own.
|
| I recently tried that (after 3 years of hesitation) and the magic
| happened. It affected my structure of feelings in several ways
| indeed, but in the context of this one, I would say that, at
| least for me, it was not like "I forgive you", "you owe me, but I
| let go". Not at all, in my case, it simply earased the "load",
| the hard feelings, completely.
|
| Beyond the magic psychadelic affects, the trip is an emotional
| journey that one takes, a journey that you come back with
| compassion, understanding and rock solid outlook over the world.
| BelmundoRegal wrote:
| See also ;
|
| MDMA Solo ; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25974701
|
| "The brain is not a blind, reactive machine, but a complex,
| sensitive biocomputer that we can program. And if we don't take
| the responsibility for programming it, then it will be
| programmed unwittingly by accident or by the social
| environment."
| randomopining wrote:
| Is it worth it solo?
| yeswecatan wrote:
| This sounds so amazing. I'd probably never try mushrooms though
| because I'm terrified of them rewiring my brain in some messed
| up way.
| quchen wrote:
| In my experience, >>mushrooms rewire you<< does not really do
| them justice: they mostly help you rewire yourself; more like
| changing habits (internal) rather than surgery (external).
|
| Here's a personal example: a couple of years ago I had a very
| rough breakup, but over the years came to terms with it. More
| than 3 years later, I internally >>met<< my ex in a
| psychedelic dream-like state, both were happy with our new
| lives, and we said goodbye to each other. It was calm and
| peaceful. It was also the first positive thought I've had
| about her, undiluted by lingering negativity. I was not
| rewired, but it allowed me to think a thought I did not think
| I could ever have, and changed my outlook on the whole
| situation.
|
| (It was a dose on the low-medium end, and I haven't attempted
| repeating it, nor do I plan to.)
| yeswecatan wrote:
| Thank you for sharing. If you had a positive experience,
| why do you plan on not trying again? Of course I'm not
| advocating for doing it daily :)
| quchen wrote:
| I'm open to doing it again, but I have no particular urge
| to do so. I'm torn between taking it for fun (but unhappy
| about the lack of depth) or for reflection (which is hard
| to plan for and exhausting). In the end it's a very
| intense experience that's a bit hard to anticipate: I
| need to be outside with good weather, in a good short-
| and medium-term mood.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think people should be generally afraid of any substance that
| can I give long term personality changes with just a few doses,
| sometimes even with a doctor's help.
| BelmundoRegal wrote:
| I calculate a 99.99% chance you have never tried any such
| substance and therefore know not what you're talking about.
| The "long term personality changes" are for the vast majority
| transformational in a positive way, as in doing away with
| pathological stuff forever.
|
| I encourage you to take a moment to get acquainted with what
| is being done clinically ( which to be honest is not what I
| was referring to ) ;
|
| Matthew Johnson: Psychedelics | Lex Fridman Podcast #145
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICj8p5jPd3Y
|
| Matthew W. Johnson is a professor and psychedelics researcher
| at Johns Hopkins.
|
| I could accept your statement with "afraid" switched for
| "prudent" but even then, it turns out Psilocybin is your
| friend.
| LegitShady wrote:
| > I calculate a 99.99% chance you have never tried any such
| substance and therefore know not what you're talking about.
| The "long term personality changes" are for the vast
| majority transformational in a positive way, as in doing
| away with pathological stuff forever.
|
| You've calculated statistics for things you've made up.
|
| >Matthew Johnson: Psychedelics | Lex Fridman Podcast #145
|
| Please please don't quote podcasts as research, and giving
| me 3.5 hours of homework listening to understand your point
| is poor communication and ensures the maximum amount of
| resistance to understanding what you're trying to say.
| zepto wrote:
| Afraid? Pretty much everything we do affects us. I'd say
| choice of jobs and schools has had a giant effect on me, much
| of it not what I would choose.
|
| Make a careful, informed decision. But there is no need to be
| 'afraid'.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Not all change is equal, not all change is equally
| controlled. Pretending it is because change occurs
| sabotages your ability to categorize, analyze, and
| ultimately judge change.
|
| Most people are not qualified to and cannot make careful
| informed decisions about the way drugs affect you.
| zepto wrote:
| > Pretending it is because change occurs sabotages your
| ability to categorize, analyze, and ultimately judge
| change.
|
| Who is pretending this?
|
| > Most people are not qualified to and cannot make
| careful informed decisions about the way drugs affect
| you.
|
| Who is qualified in your opinion?
| peterlk wrote:
| I see this argument a lot, and I think it is more hollow than
| it appears. I am certainly not the same person now that I was
| 10 years ago. Indeed, I am different than the person I was 1
| year ago. Life happens, people change. Directing this change
| with psilocybin seems like a reasonable choice. Sometimes it
| may misfire, and you will be a bit worse off; but sometimes
| humans get depressed, angry, or otherwise negative for lots
| of other reasons.
|
| I watched a movie once that made me deeply depressed for
| weeks. Thin may have permanently changed my personality too.
| Should we ban movies because they make people feel and think
| things that they haven't felt and thought before? (That's as
| close as I'll get to cancel culture uproar in this post)
| LegitShady wrote:
| >Life happens, people change. Directing this change with
| psilocybin seems like a reasonable choice. Sometimes it may
| misfire, and you will be a bit worse off; but sometimes
| humans get depressed, angry, or otherwise negative for lots
| of other reasons.
|
| I think your rebuttal is more hollow than it appears. It
| ultimately ascribes equal value to all change, and all
| change no matter how poorly controlled.
| overflow897 wrote:
| I think people should be generally excited by the prospect of
| resolving long term psychological issues with just a few
| doses.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I agree, for people with long term
| physiological/psychological issues this might be a huge
| boon, and may be a better alternative than common anti
| depressants.
|
| But I know many people who have done psylocybin for fun who
| are probably changed because of it, in an uncontrolled
| fashion.
| simmerup wrote:
| What's your take on allowing a substance to change you so much?
| whalesalad wrote:
| You're changing yourself. The substance is allowing the
| transformation to occur.
| scruple wrote:
| I had a very bad trip, my last trip, and it took me years to
| recover. That was > 2 decades ago.
|
| It's my opinion that we need to recognize that these
| substances have the power to modify us in extremely powerful,
| unknown ways. And we need to create a safe environment (how?
| I do not know, probably regulation, but after seeing how
| California is handling "legal weed," I am not holding my
| breath) for people to use these substances in a safe way.
|
| > What's your take on allowing a substance to change you so
| much?
|
| In the end, it was still positive. But I wouldn't recommend
| the path that I walked with psychedelics to anyone,
| regardless of where it brought me. If I had been better
| educated, more informed, purchasing from a reputable source,
| etc... I imagine that things would've been vastly different
| for me than they were.
| randomopining wrote:
| Did you prepare and also surrender to the experience? I
| think if you give in and accept, you can't lose.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| The substance turns your thought process inward. You think
| about the thoughts you are having, and the associations
| behind those thoughts much more deeply than you otherwise
| would. You think about ordinary, everyday things in a much
| deeper way. This is what changes you. You could do the same
| thing with meditation probably.
| randomopining wrote:
| Shrooms hit at a raw emotional level, especially
| highlighting your connection and oneness with nature.
|
| Meditation is the ultimate key though, putting in the hard
| work and then using shrooms sparingly to cash in on that.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| Can't speak for OP but it sounds preferable to when he
| "allowed" his relationship with his father to take him on
| such an emotional journey.
| tzury wrote:
| I was not setting goals before, nor did I know what to
| expect. This was just an unexpected outcome, one amongst
| few others.
|
| One cannot speak indeed until one tries.
| chpatrick wrote:
| To me, I don't think it's so much about "change" as having
| your normal day to day experience being clouded by so much
| emotional pain, conditioning, trauma, rationalization, etc.
| If you can take a step back from all that, you can understand
| your deeper feelings.
| tzury wrote:
| not sure I understood the question, mind elaborating ?
| 987yghj wrote:
| It doesn't change you. It increases your access to your
| subconscious. From there, you can draw your own conclusions.
| haskaalo wrote:
| I have had many psychedelics experience during the last 2 years
| but I've only had the opportunity to try mushrooms once.
|
| They definitely are powerful and healing, however I believe the
| only safe path shrooms will take in our society is national
| legalization for use in therapy and not recreational use.
|
| My main argument is the following: legalization for recreational
| use will trivialize the image of psilocybin in the eyes of the
| population, and we will start to see an increase in "bad
| experiences" due to people using it without having a trip sitter
| or preparation. Therefore, legalizing it only for therapy use
| will be more beneficial for the general population.
|
| Decriminalization is an option, but legalization ehhh.
| randomopining wrote:
| It should be legal to grow yourself (only serious people will
| do it) and also for therapy.
|
| I think I agree that straight recreational legalizing would
| attract people who aren't prepared to just take a ton and be
| idiots.
| adammunich wrote:
| Old news is news I see
| diimdeep wrote:
| This 'news' is scheduled 'blogspam', this article links to
| prev. article with exactly the same premise and that posted
| exactly 1 month earlier (15 april, 15 march), while both based
| on ~2018 research. Moving on.
| tpm wrote:
| No, it's based on an article that just came out in NEJM:
| Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994
| diimdeep wrote:
| > dii
|
| ok, thanks for correcting me.
| Black101 wrote:
| They gave psilocybin in much lower dose to the placebo group... I
| wonder what the point of that was... it could still be affecting
| them.
| Leparamour wrote:
| >They gave psilocybin in much lower dose to the placebo
| group... I wonder what the point of that was
|
| Psylocybin usually comes with obvious hallucinogenic or
| physiological effects. The placebo group would instantly
| realize they have been given a placebo if no physiological
| effects appear at all, hereby making the blind study useless.
|
| The Charite hospital in Berlin is starting a similar study
| sometime in summer of this year. The setup is that the
| control/placebo group (instead of Psylocybin) receives a dosage
| of Niacin [1]. This causes a "flushing" effect[2] in the test
| subject and in this way can trick them into believing they have
| indeed received Psylocybin.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niacin
|
| [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_(physiology)
| vlunkr wrote:
| On the one hand, HN is terrified of brain-computer interfaces
| manipulating our brains and emotions, on the other hand, they're
| totally psyched about using mushrooms to do the same thing.
| filoeleven wrote:
| I'd like to introduce you to caffeine. And tryptophan, and
| casomorphins, and sugar, and...
| anonporridge wrote:
| I can't realistically automate the brain manipulation of
| millions of people taking mushrooms in a short period of time
| from the comfort of my evil lair.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Mushrooms don't have an agenda. The owner of the brain-computer
| interface probably does.
| alexilliamson wrote:
| The jury is out on that. There are mushrooms that infect
| ants' brains and make them travel to a high place before the
| ant's head explodes, so that the spores are carried further
| by the wind.
|
| They might have an agenda.
| krageon wrote:
| If you're going to be this reductive about things, you might as
| well say every antidepressant and apparently also psilocybin
| does the exact same thing. Of course, being that reductive
| isn't useful and ignores a lot of the nuance that actually
| exists around the subject. Much like what you're saying.
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| We are not a homogenous group.
| phito wrote:
| It's not even remotely the same thing. One is a chemical
| compound that temporarly messes with the way your brain work,
| the other is an permanent (?) extension to your brain that
| allows to manipulate it from the outside. Also, HN is not one
| person with a single opinion.
| willtemperley wrote:
| It also has an extremely good therapeutic index of 641 [0],
| compared to aspirin at 19 and alcohol at 10, where higher is
| better [1].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#Toxicity
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index
| whalesalad wrote:
| For those curious: you can cultivate your own at home. It's 100%
| legal to purchase psilocybin spores online in many states.
|
| I just had to throw out a grow due to contamination - super
| frustrating setback - but I'm determined to produce a healthy
| harvest.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Before anyone rushes to do this: Cultivating these mushrooms is
| not legal, even if buying the spores might be.
|
| Likewise, self-medicating severe depression with hone grown
| psychedelics is not a great idea. These studies use controlled
| administration in supervised environments often with therapy as
| part of the process. You cannot replicate that at home.
| Psychedelics also can't be dosed continuously like traditional
| antidepressants, making them a poor choice for continued
| treatment.
| whalesalad wrote:
| This is not a hacker mindset.
| albrewer wrote:
| To add on to this, these mushrooms should not be taken by
| anyone with liver problems - I was specifically warned by my
| gastroenterologist that, behind alcohol and starchy foods,
| magic mushrooms will screw up your liver very quickly.
| quchen wrote:
| Did they mention why? Sounds like FUD to me, since the
| psilos I know of are mostly water, indigestible chitin, and
| trace amount of kidney-excreted psilocin/psilocybin.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| I had heard warnings about damaging kidney function with
| regular high dosage use, but not from a medical
| professional.
| ashconnor wrote:
| It's a shame that former MP and Home Office Minister Caroline
| Flint decided to reclassify psilocybin as a "Class A" drug
| alongside heroin and cocaine despite no evidence of it causing
| psychosis.
|
| That really was the peak of New Labour's evidence-less led
| drugs reforms.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/25/drugsandalcohol.i...
| abgr-y wrote:
| I don't believe drugs whether prescribed or recreational can cure
| Mental disorders. yes they may alleviate the symptoms but they
| don't really work on the root cause which are basically ones
| mental tendencies, thought patterns or habits acquired over a
| period of time. here[0] is a different take on what depression is
| and gives a high level road map to come out of it, for more
| details this [1] is a book by the same author and for testing out
| if those methods work here is an app [2] again from the same
| monk.
|
| p.s i have followed all three & i must say the quality of life
| has improved considerably
|
| [0] https://os.me/depression-definition-cause-and-cure/ [1]
| https://www.amazon.in/When-All-Not-Well-Perspective-ebook/dp...
| [2] https://www.blacklotus.app/
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Perhaps, but it is a lot easier to take long term action on
| your mental tendencies if you don't feel the blackness closing
| in every second.
|
| We have a long century ahead of us to pull out of the mental
| health slump we are seeing (similar perhaps to the physical
| health slumps following industrialisation). We will need many
| tools in the kit.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Interesting perspective that large societal shifts account
| for shifts in the type of health outcomes.
|
| One problem I see is that if people are too tied to their
| subjective well-being, then it is a frame of mind that can
| never be satisfied.
| throw4738 wrote:
| Friend was treated for "mental disorder". She was fine, except
| food allergy. If she followed this "bro science", she would be
| dependent on God knows what, with real mental problems.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| But that's exactly what psychedelics do, they rewire the brain.
| In neuroscience terms they disrupt the default mode network. In
| other words they open your mind up and allow it to break free
| of the tendencies, thought patterns and habits.
|
| This is why they're more akin to therapy than recreational
| drugs
| beambot wrote:
| > I don't believe...
|
| The good news is that studies such as this produce empirical,
| scientific evidence that supercedes anecdotes and individuals'
| belief patterns -- whether they're negative or skeptical (as
| yours) or hyper-positive cure-alls (eg from psychonauts)
| TriNetra wrote:
| Before science can appreciate the mental/causal causes of the
| depression and related diseases, it needs to find an evidence
| for and establishes the separation of mind from physical
| brain. Hopefully an intensive exploration of consciousness
| and intelligence will lead to some empirical conclusions.
| krageon wrote:
| Not all depression is attributable to environmental factors. If
| it is, the environmental factors is what a psychologist looks
| at with you. If it's not, you use some sort of medication to
| solve it. Reducing every kind of thing that you can get
| medication for that isn't entirely physical to a "mental
| disorder" is both dismissive and kind of insulting, which
| really doesn't help the point you're trying to make here.
|
| Which appears to be that some random book has all the answers
| that somehow nobody else has really figured out. Oh, and
| there's an app!
| elric wrote:
| There's been some promising progress on migraine/cluster-headache
| treatments with psilocybin microdosing. Really happy to see that
| humanity is slowly starting to realize that blanket bans aren't
| always the best idea ..
| internetslave wrote:
| I'm going to cluster HN news stories by topic and then write a
| script to filter the same content out.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| French call this kind of repetitive, easy to write and not
| worth reading articles "marronniers" (literally "chestnut
| tree"), supposedly because some famous tree was worth an annual
| subject. In case you need to name your project :)
|
| On the other hand, I would prefer to filter out the comments
| marronniers. You know, the mushroom anecdotes, the quality of
| the Mac trackpad, ...
| hyper_dynamics wrote:
| Can't say much of the mushrooms, but the Mac trackpad is so
| good, it made me write this comment ;)
| satellite2 wrote:
| It seems the design of this study is questionable.
|
| Since they couldn't blind the psylocybin group from the effect,
| they gave 1mg daily to the SSRI group.
|
| Basically it's a study that compares psylocybin with SSRI +
| psylocybin micro dosing.
|
| They claim that the micro dose don't have an effect, but there is
| not a large body of evidence to support that claim.
| 8192kjshad09- wrote:
| Wouldn't the study design under exaggerate the effect of
| psilocybin, if anything?
| jxding wrote:
| To be a little pedantic, I'm not sure "under exaggerate" is a
| valid phrase. What you're looking for may be "under-report"?
| qntty wrote:
| The 1 mg dose wasn't daily, it was 3 weeks apart. From the
| study:
|
| _Patients were assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive two separate
| doses of 25 mg of psilocybin 3 weeks apart plus 6 weeks of
| daily placebo (psilocybin group) or two separate doses of 1 mg
| of psilocybin 3 weeks apart plus 6 weeks of daily oral
| escitalopram (escitalopram group); all the patients received
| psychological support._
|
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994
| collyw wrote:
| Here in Europe someone gave politicians the idea that they could
| control a virus. So now we have arbitrary sets of restrictions
| applied when case numbers of coronavirus go up. If case numbers
| go down again, they get relaxed. If they go up, add more
| restrictions are added until they go down. The restrictions are
| follow the case numbers, but we have convinced ourselves it is
| the other way around. It's a modern day witchcraft.
| krageon wrote:
| Measures to contain COVID-19 exist globally and if you have
| great cosmic insight into the fact that they don't work,
| perhaps you could share that instead of sarcasm without any
| basis.
| theelous3 wrote:
| They are saying they do work, but only when they are
| implemented. They are unimplemented when the numbers get low,
| which causes them to go back up, and has the effect of
| starting the cycle again.
| dTal wrote:
| No, they are saying that lockdowns do nothing and any
| appearance that they do is backwards causality:
| "restrictions are follow[sic] the case numbers, but we have
| convinced ourselves it is the other way around".
|
| They're wrong, but that's what they're saying.
| collyw wrote:
| I didn't say they do nothing, lockdowns clearly cause
| massive harm and suffering yet there is no obvious
| benefit when compared to places that didn't lock down.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84092-1
| nmca wrote:
| I've seen this claim bandied about, but if you look at
| Sweden and its neighbors the no-lockdown case has 1000s
| more deaths. There are perhaps subtle arguments, but "no
| obvious benefit" seems extremely tenuous.
| collyw wrote:
| Do you know what Finland and Norways lockdown involved?
|
| They closed schools and public buildings. They didn't
| force people to stay at home. They didn't stop people
| travelling, or force them to wear masks. They treated
| their populations as humans. Their responses were a lot
| closer to Sweden than to most European countries
| "lockdown" responses.
|
| And did you know that for whatever reason, Finland has 5
| times more flu deaths per capita than Sweden on a normal
| year.
|
| https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-
| death/influenza...
|
| You will also notice the the two countries where masks
| are apparently the norm, South Korea and Japan have
| relatively high rates of flu death for developed
| countries. That implies that the masks don't help.
|
| To use Sweden as an example of lockdown being effective
| is grasping at straws.
|
| Where is the spike after Texas opened up a month ago? Why
| is Florida doing better than California, despite an older
| population?
| bnralt wrote:
| Looking at the stats now, it seems like it's doing better
| than a number of European countries, many of which had
| lockdowns (France, Belgium, Italy, etc.). Then you have
| countries like Japan, which people have been complaining
| about being lax for a year but still has lower rates than
| almost all Western countries.
|
| That's not to say lockdowns aren't effective, but the
| data doesn't seem to fit any neat narrative at the
| moment.
| krageon wrote:
| This is also what I read in it, which I found a little
| strange of a stance given what we know works for the flu.
| collyw wrote:
| Well they don't exist globally. Various US states and
| countries didn't copy China in a blind panic. There seems no
| correlation between lockdown and the overall outcome,
| suggesting that they don't "work". Texas opening up a month
| ago showed no spike in cases.
|
| Considering the massive amounts of suffering these policies
| are causing, there ought to be a bit of reflection on how
| effective they are. We have a years worth of data now, and as
| I pointed out, there seems to be no correlation. There seems
| to be no consideration of the side effects and harms caused.
|
| Assuming the approach of locking people up works, without
| taking into account the new data as it comes in is not
| science. It is faith.
| KarlKode wrote:
| You're wrong.
|
| There exist a direct correlation between not locking down
| (or waiting) and the number of infections and deaths:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81869-2
| anoncake wrote:
| Lucky you. Here in Germany, we add restrictions when the
| numbers go down and relax them when the numbers go up. And I'm
| not confusing cause and effect.
| mkeespiet wrote:
| Me and my girlfriend are microdosing LSD for the past couple of
| weeks. We both are very outgoing persons, but due to Corona, our
| life is really boring which makes our mental state not as
| positive as it was. We notice that we have more acceptance to the
| Corona situation. Especially the "bad" days, the microdosis makes
| the day much more acceptable.. I'm aware that this is a very
| brief explanation. If you are very interested in this, please let
| me know, happy to chat or call about it.
| murph-almighty wrote:
| When you say microdosing, what size doses are you using?
| mkeespiet wrote:
| For me ~10mic
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| What kind of dose are the individuals being given? It says 2
| high-level doses over a 6 week period. Are we thinking the
| antidepressant effects aren't from the trip itself, but from the
| aftereffects? That's sort of what's being discovered w/r/t
| ketamine therapy for depression.
| david_allison wrote:
| > Patients were assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive two separate
| doses of 25 mg of psilocybin 3 weeks apart plus 6 weeks of
| daily placebo (psilocybin group) or two separate doses of 1 mg
| of psilocybin 3 weeks apart plus 6 weeks of daily oral
| escitalopram (escitalopram group);
|
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994
| varispeed wrote:
| I think the people behind drug prohibition need reckoning. They
| have caused untold suffering, especially by preventing people
| from accessing medication they needed. There is no justification
| for drug prohibition to continue. If anyone thinks otherwise,
| then it only means they have not educated themselves enough about
| the topic, they profit from the current status quo or simply they
| take pleasure in causing suffering to other people.
| zepto wrote:
| No justification for prohibition, but quite possibly
| justification for regulation.
| varispeed wrote:
| Yes the market should be regulated. Some substances can be
| more dangerous than others so there should be adequate
| restrictions and support plus raised tax could help with
| mental health services and education to ensure people can
| make informed decisions and also receive help if they get it
| wrong.
| wil421 wrote:
| Cocaine, Heroin, Meth, and Fentanyl should never be legal. They
| are too addicting.
|
| Possession in a small amount should be decriminalized using a
| stick (drunk tank for a couple days) or carrot (state run rehab
| or classes) method.
|
| Stop the prosecutions and jailing of the users. Mandate a class
| or whatever like they do for DUIs and provide a state run place
| to ween them off. Combined with a safe place to do drugs and
| safe needles.
| barbacoa wrote:
| >Cocaine, Heroin, Meth, and Fentanyl should never be legal.
| They are too addicting.
|
| I know 10X as many people who threw away their lives working
| minimum wage and minimum responsibility jobs just so that
| they can afford enough marijuana to make themselves happy
| with living without ambition.
|
| Not that I think marijuana should be illegal but if we are
| going to legalize one we should be consistent and legalize
| everything.
| meepmorp wrote:
| If they're happy with the lives they live, then how are
| their lives wasted? Is it possible they just have different
| values?
| vokep wrote:
| It comes down to each individual I guess, but I'm
| doubtful that such people are really very happy. Smoking
| every day to offload stress can seem nice, until you're
| looking back on all the time you could've used better,
| and realize its not making you happy, it just distracts
| from what makes you unhappy. It can be really fun to add
| to experiences that are already enjoyable, and every now
| and then it can be helpful to offload stress during
| something undesirable, but if its use is too frequent,
| given my own experience and those around me, it does
| become a black hole of time. The old South Park
| explanation was quite spot on, it makes you alright with
| being bored, when being bored should motivate to do
| _something_.
|
| All that said, with conscious planning to use it in a
| productive way, I've found incredible enhancement of
| working on creative projects while stoned out of my mind.
| bunfunton wrote:
| I mean marijuana is more addicting to me than cocaine so....
| wil421 wrote:
| Yes but no one is doing crackhead or dopehead things when
| they want Marijuana.
| varispeed wrote:
| > Cocaine, Heroin, Meth, and Fentanyl should never be legal.
| They are too addicting.
|
| These drugs should be legal precisely because they are so
| dangerous. The key is adequate regulation appropriate for the
| potential danger.
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| > Cocaine, Heroin, Meth, and Fentanyl should never be legal.
| They are too addicting.
|
| Maybe for you, but why should you be the arbiter of what
| other people do? Make it legal and tax substances to the
| point that the revenue offsets the potential negatives.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Because those people don't live in a vacuum.
|
| I know I'm just one case, but as someone who's mother got
| addicted to legally prescribed Fentanyl as well as other
| opioids as a result of her cancer treatments, and to had
| serve as caregiver for said mother when said drugs sent her
| into irrational rages and occasionally made her suicidal
| (she later admitted to not remembering multiple months of
| time from the years she was on it), the libertarian
| individual choice argument is particularly full of shit
| when it comes to these substances.
|
| There are some things that the average human biology simply
| cannot handle. Making said substances illegal or regulating
| them such that they are impossible for the average person
| to get is perfectly rational and beneficial for society.
| Naturally treatment centers should be provided for those
| who manage to obtain them illegally as opposed to jail
| time, and that's the part we suck at. No rational person
| with purpose seeks out illegal opioids, it's a symptom of
| underlying issues and should be treated as such, not
| punished.
|
| Psilocybin, Marijuana, Tobacco and Alcohol are completely
| different animals. And yes there are people who can't
| handle these, but the vast majority of the population is
| capable of doing so and/or the consequences are less severe
| when they are mishandled. You can't say that about opioids.
|
| Same reason even in the US while I can own an AR-15, I
| cannot own a Patriot Missile Battery. One the average
| individual can be relatively trusted with, the other they
| cannot.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| > Same reason even in the US while I can own an AR-15, I
| cannot own a Patriot Missile Battery
|
| Au Contraire! Explosives are just very difficult to buy
| because you must go through an approval process to
| purchase a "destructive device" and the storage
| regulations, which vary widely from area to area, are
| (rightfully) difficult and expensive to comply with.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Judging by studies on long term use of other mind-altering drugs,
| I would expect psilocybin to similarly cause decline in cognitive
| abilities after prolonged use.
|
| Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I could not find studies on
| effect of specifically psilocybin on cognitive abilities.
|
| And please, don't bring up EmoIQ and other non-reasoning related
| stuff. This is not what the concern is about.
| cyberlab wrote:
| If anything shrooms would be contributing to _neurogenesis_ [0]
| not destroying brain cells. Opposite to alcohol which is well
| known to destroy brain cells.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis
| lostmsu wrote:
| I see you share the sentiment. Well,
|
| > Injection of PSOP, 25I-NBMeO or ketanserin resulted in
| significant dose-dependent decreases in number of newborn
| neurons in hippocampus
|
| > At the low doses of PSOP that enhanced extinction,
| neurogenesis was not decreased, but rather tended toward an
| increase
|
| (in mice) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23727882/
|
| The way I read it large doses definitely decrease
| neurogenesis and low doses look like they slightly increase,
| but the authors are uncertain.
|
| That putting aside that neurogenesis changes caused by the
| substance might be affecting the actual intelligence either
| way.
| [deleted]
| randomopining wrote:
| It emotionally attaches you to this world, which you belong in.
| You feel a connection to the eb and flow of the world, which I
| think depressed people lose. They get caught in their sole
| perception of their world, caused by neuroticism and past
| traumas. The brain pathways are hit hard every day, so it's tough
| for them to get out of it. This substance can be like a tsunami
| that washes it all away.
| xxel wrote:
| What trial, what research? I have spent 20 years in psy festivals
| still have no depression even after these lockdowns and people I
| know are free of depression too. Even scientists I know eat acid
| and mushrooms so what research is needed?
| simonswords82 wrote:
| I have a friend who has experienced magic mushrooms
| recreationally about half a dozen times in her 20s. After each
| trip she reported feeling clear headed and more mindful - she
| described it as though her mind's harddrive had been
| defragmented.
|
| Fast forward 10 years and that same friend felt low during
| lockdown over the past 12 months. After reading up online she
| decided to try microdosing mushrooms rather than the mainstream
| route her doctor would prescribe - anti depressants.
|
| She has been taking a tiny dose every other day and feels
| immeasurably better. More optimistic about the future. More
| energy. More focus. Less sad.
|
| To say it's frustrating to read these official press releases
| about the positive impact of mushrooms nearly 20 years after she
| discovered them for the first time is the understatement of a
| lifetime.
|
| I'm convinced we'll look back at this era as a form of
| prohibition on drugs that governments threw down as a wide
| blanket and ultimately society was worse off for.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| It will be looked back upon the same as alcohol prohibition.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Meaning the prohibition was misguided but the drug itself is
| dangerous?
| miles wrote:
| Study finds mushrooms are the safest recreational drug
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/23/study-
| halluc...
|
| Britain, drug harm score https://www.economist.com/img/b/60
| 0/916/90/sites/default/fil...
| Uberphallus wrote:
| The drug has dangers, but they seem small compared to those
| of alcohol, even if largely orthogonal.
|
| It got banned because it wasn't understood in the best
| case, to curb the counterculture movement from the 60s in
| the worst, but it's always been hard to justify it with
| medical reasons; it's been just tagged along with cocaine
| or heroin and made bad by association.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| But if there hasn't been significant medical research,
| how do we know there are no long-term dangers?
| pope_meat wrote:
| Why, the next best thing after significant medical
| research, anecdotal research!
|
| So far so good.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| So far in this topic, it's been research of the "my
| friend said" kind. Which is even less reliable than
| direct anecdotal research.
| pope_meat wrote:
| My friend doesn't like to admit to things that might be
| considered a crime, it's just how it goes in a police
| state.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Do you not think huge quantities of people do it all the
| time right now? Because, well, they do. Further there
| were a lot of experiments with psychedelics in the 60s.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| That's not how medical research works.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Definitely, however it's also disingenuous to say that we
| have no idea what the long term consequences of shrooms
| are just because there hasn't been a formal study
| recently. There's tons of people doing it regularly - for
| millennia actually, studies from the before-times and a
| large incentive by the mainstream anti-drug folks to
| dramatize any adverse consequences.
|
| Should there be studies? Sure. Are we pretty sure it's
| safe? Yep. Safe enough to legalize? Oh most definitely.
| Certainly until proven otherwise.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| The way to get people to agree with legalization is to
| follow rigorous medical study procedures, not handwave
| about it being obviously fine.
|
| For the record I think they should be legalized.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I tend to believe that unless proven otherwise,
| substances should be legal. The burden of proof IMO is on
| the folks who want to restrain behavior.
|
| [edit] I don't think that producing a study that shows a
| lack of harm is going to change anyone's mind. The
| prohibition is puritanical and ideological, no amount of
| evidence is going to change that. I think if this was
| based on a genuine fear, the study would have preceded
| the prohibition. This feels more like running ourselves
| in circles to collect evidence, Lucy and the football
| style.
|
| We already know the LD-50 of mushrooms is 17kg of fresh
| mushroom for an average size human lol.
| bigfudge wrote:
| > We already know the LD-50 of mushrooms is 17kg of fresh
| mushroom for an average size human lol.
|
| Curious as to how we know... has anyone ever OD'd on
| psylocibin?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| I agree but I'm talking tactically. Legalization requires
| convincing people that don't think the same way, and the
| best method for doing that is by rigorous medical study.
|
| _The prohibition is puritanical and ideological, no
| amount of evidence is going to change that_
|
| Your insistence that this is the case is itself
| ideological.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > Your insistence that this is the case is itself
| ideological.
|
| Haha, ok, well, in that case, on what basis were drugs
| banned? Specifically psychedelics.
|
| > We're talking about current attitudes, not the reasons
| why they were banned in the first place.
|
| The current attitude is "drugs are bad" because of
| childhood education programs. Drugs are bad because
| they're illegal. You've seen the PSAs. It was never
| evidence based to begin with, then the "puritans" (DARE)
| switched to youth indoctrination. It's been so long now
| that there "must be a good reason."
|
| It was never logical, or evidence based, and it remains
| illogical, and not evidence based. Bringing evidence to
| an illogical conversation IMO is like bringing an
| inflatable flamingo to a fancy dinner. People will look
| quizzically, and you won't change minds.
|
| But hey, here's hoping I'm wrong.
|
| After all when Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001
| all the negative health factors and societal factors
| associated with drug use fell off a cliff -- and usage
| did not increase. That's all the evidence I need to
| follow suit.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| That isn't what your comment said. You said "no amount of
| evidence is going to change it".
|
| We're talking about current attitudes, not the reasons
| why they were banned in the first place.
| tremon wrote:
| But if the current attitudes aren't based on evidence,
| what makes you think that more evidence will change those
| attitudes? That's what the GP is asking.
| bigfudge wrote:
| We don't have rigorous experimental data on alcohol or
| nicotine either.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| Then we have way too many measuring sticks.
|
| 1. Medical consensus say it's bad, but it's kept legal:
| tobacco, alcohol, drinking bleach.
|
| 2. There's no medical consensus, but it's forbidden
| anyway: LSD, mushrooms, DMT...
|
| 3. Medical consensus say it's bad, and it's forbidden:
| cocaine, heroin, meth...
|
| 4. Medical consensus say it's good, but we ban it anyway:
| MDMA in the context of psychotherapy [0].
|
| 5. There's no medical consensus, but we ban some yet not
| others that have an identical mechanism of action:
| poppers
|
| That's without getting into the fact that the federal
| schedule system is seemingly impermeable, and cocaine or
| heroin have accepted medical uses, but somehow weed
| doesn't, despite all the evidence it does.
|
| [0] Linking because maybe not many are aware: https://jou
| rnals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20503245187674...
| jack_riminton wrote:
| This is my experience too. I've been microdosing about 1.3mg on
| and off during lockdown. The effects are subtle and hard to
| describe but I'd say it's like 'opening your mind' or reframing
| your point of view on things. Definitely different from other
| drugs which just pump you with serotonin
| anonporridge wrote:
| It temporarily breaks you out of your established mental
| framework. It's as if your raw consciousness viewing the
| world without any of the filters that we all use to tune out
| the noise. That's why the experience can be overwhelming and
| chaotic and it's useful to be in a safe place with a trip
| sitter.
|
| I think the magic comes when you discover that something your
| default mindset was filtering out as noise is actually
| signal. With that insight, you can more easily make changes
| to your sober mindset.
| agent008t wrote:
| That is interesting. So it is a bit like reducing your
| attention, and expanding awareness?
|
| What you described sounds very similar to the effects of
| mindfulness meditation. The idea in a sense is to increase
| awareness - that is, sensing the world as is, without the
| filters or influence of mental objects. The theory is that
| meditation can then help you free yourself of past negative
| conditioning that is no longer relevant and to be more
| present.
|
| It would be interesting to see more studies on both, but I
| understand that many things to do with the mind and
| subjective experiences are difficult to measure and
| therefore to study.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| Yes there are definitely parallels
|
| At a cellular level, it temporarily vastly increases the
| connections between the synapses. A lot of what your
| brain does is travel along well worn synaptic pathways,
| like running on autopilot. This is when you feel like
| you're in a rut, it's because your brain for efficiency
| reasons is just doing what it always does. The temporary
| frenzy of increased synaptic connections allows people to
| break out of those ruts
| anonporridge wrote:
| Definitely. Sam Harris' book Waking Up is what turned me
| on to psychedelics as a mind expanding tool rather than
| just a party drug, which I had little interest in.
|
| In it, he talks about how his early experiences with
| psychedelics turned him on to the fact there was
| something real worth pursuing in meditation and
| mindfulness beyond the superstitious bullshit. Most of
| the book is about using meditation as a tool for
| spirituality without religious baggage or supernatural
| explanations.
|
| The way he and others talk about it, is that psychedelics
| effectively force any mind into an objectively different
| state of consciousness. Even though it doesn't last long
| and the memory of it fades, just the awareness that
| radical mind shifts are possible is enough to help people
| take mindfulness practice seriously.
| vmception wrote:
| there is a suspected overlap that both communities talk
| about
|
| check it out
| Leparamour wrote:
| >I think the magic comes when you discover that something
| your default mindset was filtering out as noise is actually
| signal. With that insight, you can more easily make changes
| to your sober mindset.
|
| Regarding microdosing (as described by the OP) this begs
| the question: Are there perhaps unwanted side effects for
| running your brain on permanent "debug mode"?
| anonporridge wrote:
| Hard to say. This is the first study I've seen that's
| tried to learn about microdosing. There's not a lot of
| good data on it, but it wouldn't be hard for me to
| believe that there are some side effects.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| How do you measure this amount? If mushrooms vary in shape
| and size...do you have to ground them up and take gelcaps to
| measure this appropriately?
| why_Mr_Anderson wrote:
| I'm honestly surprised that you are able feel any effect from
| such a dose. Based on what i've heard from my friend's
| uncle's guardener's grandmother's neighbour, this could very
| much be just simple placebo effect. You know you are taking
| mushrooms, which have no effect, but you 'feel' better.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I used to think this but I think society has figured out
| something better. It has figured out that many people can use
| drugs effectively and many people are worthless on drugs.
|
| So what it does is that it allows you to use as many drugs as
| possible when you're something like a high-income professional
| and sort of criminalizes drug use among working class people.
|
| Your "test" for being a safe drug user is to have a lot to
| lose.
|
| Drug use is rampant in SF for instance. And I know lots of drug
| users: cocaine, MDMA, psychedelics.
|
| I used to think "why doesn't society just make you post a bond
| that lets you act in a slightly more unrestrained manner" and
| now I've realized society does! You just have to constantly be
| in a state of having too much to lose.
|
| Personally, I use shrooms frequently (I have some in my fridge
| right now) and LSD less frequently and MDMA rarely. All of
| these have been amazing eye opening experiences and I am a much
| better person for them. Thank God.
|
| All a coastal California perspective of course.
| rmcpherson wrote:
| This is one of the travesties of drug enforcement and has
| compounded inequality in America. The imprisonment of the
| poor for nonviolent drug offenses continues today. That a
| wealthy drug user would laud this as a good outcome of drug
| policy is honestly flabbergasting, but perhaps shouldn't be.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's really quite awful, isn't it? Completely inequitable
| and very unfair. But if I had to choose between equal
| misery and unequal prosperity, I think I choose the latter
| each time.
|
| I'd like for us to make psychedelics accessible to all, but
| since lots of people don't want that, I think I'll settle
| for keeping psychedelics accessible to me.
| simion314 wrote:
| I have zero experience with drugs, so I am wondering if there
| is a sugar/cigarette industry that put a lot of money into
| promoting it's products, then what will be different when drugs
| get legalized?
|
| Won't we repeat the history where companies make billions from
| this products, put them into ads to spread the use and addict
| people, suppress research into bad side effects etc,.
|
| Personally I think there are some good applications for
| mushrooms or marijuana but my instinct is that the greedy
| people would do what they do best, sucker people and make big
| money.
| anonporridge wrote:
| The nature of psychedelics makes it difficult to overuse
| them.
|
| Your body will actually build a tolerance to them and they'll
| stop working if you use too regularly.
|
| You also don't establish a physiological addiction like you
| do with drugs like nicotine and sugar.
|
| Finally, the dosage required is absurdly small and would be
| extremely cheap to mass produce. You can grow mushrooms
| relatively easy in your damn closet. It's not like it's a
| patented designer drug.
|
| Will people created patented designer psychedelics?
| Certainly. But it seems to me like it would be a similar kind
| of problem to people buying Fiji water when nearly the same
| stuff is flowing out the tap for damn near free.
| simion314 wrote:
| You can also grow tabacco or make alcohol yourself, so I
| still expecting a giant industry that will try it's best to
| hide the side effects, blame the victim when something goes
| wrong, put billions in ads to make it look cool to use
| their products.
|
| Why would you take micro doses of mushrooms rather then use
| an approved anti-depressant treatment? Your home grown
| mushrooms might differ in concentrations, the one you buy
| might be low quality...
|
| I have nothing against the product, I am just anxious that
| it will be promoted as a miracle , "text mushrooms and your
| anxiety will be gone, your creativity is 10X better, see
| Joe the developer wrote this cool Rust project fueled just
| with weed and mushrooms in 48 hours" - I have a bias, I do
| not trust companies and capitalistic societies, they fuck
| the society for profit, we need to keep our eyes open on
| this studies, make impartial ones and maybe do something
| about misleading ads and posts promoting unsafe stuff.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Of course. And when multi billion dollar marketing budgets
| are put to work for weed and psychedelics, you can expect the
| same situation to occur as with tobacco or alcohol.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I've seen it suggested that a reasonable legalization
| framework would be to legalize all drugs but not allow
| advertising. This would logically include getting rid of
| alcohol and tobacco advertising too.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Sure, for weed maybe.
|
| But psychedelics are very different. They're really,
| genuinely not addictive -- probably because they're not
| "fun." In fact, they're exhausting. You may feel a lot better
| after, the experience may be fascinating, but you're in
| absolutely no hurry to do it again. The whole thing lasts a
| few hours, but literally feels like months, with numerous
| epochs along the way.
|
| It's not like the kind of hollow calories of a bag of
| Cheetos, it's more like a long, difficult workout. That's
| hard to productize in that way.
| varispeed wrote:
| I don't think that it is a "fun" factor that keeps people
| addicted. It's the fear of withdrawals.
| bigfudge wrote:
| >probably because they're not "fun."
|
| You've been doing it wrong ;-) I'm not sure I've ever
| laughed so much or felt so connected to people. Just
| thinking about it is making me nostalgic.
| pwr33 wrote:
| I did psychedelics for many years and nearly every day for
| well over a year. In total I have had at least 500-600
| experiences with various psychedelics, especially
| mushrooms, LSD, 5-MeO-MiPT, 5-MeO-DMT, 2C-I and 2C-P.
|
| I was addicted in some sense definitely, though apparently
| most people don't feel that way. I had to do tons of
| cocaine to stop my heaviest phase of psychedelic use and
| since then I have only used them occasionally over the
| years.
| pbadenski wrote:
| Surely, you must have sampled ethanol? ;)
| SpikeMan wrote:
| Reminds me of the documentary about Addreal and it's prevalence
| in tech and other high-functioning people. It quickly mentioned
| (anonymously) a SV tech person that switched to microdosing
| mushrooms rather than Addreal, and how that made everything
| better for her (but the documentary cut short on following up
| her case).
| giantg2 wrote:
| I thought you were going a different direction with that. I
| don't know if it was the same documentary, but the one I saw
| was focused on the medical and moral effects and questions
| around the use of Adderall in the tech population, college
| students, and children. The main gist I got from it was that
| people were using it without knowing the possible side
| effects, like liver issues or mood issues. And that many of
| the people in tech didn't actually need it but were using it
| to enhance performance, and found a doctor willing to write
| to script.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| How much mushroom matter is considered a microdose? Or, how is
| it best measured?
| tomComb wrote:
| One way to approach is that a microdose for you is any dose
| that has no notable psychoactive effect.
|
| Practically, microdosing is often in the 20 - 100 mg range,
| and the lower threshold of a 'normal' psychoactive dose would
| be 600 - 800 mg (depending on the individual, eg. their
| weight, of course).
| internetslave wrote:
| I know a lot of people whose minds were ruined by psychedelics.
| It's something you will see when you spend time in those
| communities. It doesn't happen to everyone, but it's common.
| pbadenski wrote:
| This type of empty fear mongering comment is unhelpful at
| best. It's a McDonalds of a comment. What's a lot of people?
| Why are psychedelics so special compared to anything else
| (sugar, Facebook, gambling). "It doesn't happen to everyone,
| but it's common" - what does this even mean? "Common" based
| on what criterion? How should our behaviour as a society
| change based on your comment?
| nicbou wrote:
| It seems to be an appropriate response to an anecdote.
|
| "I've seen it work"
|
| "I've also seen it fail"
| jokoon wrote:
| Are you comparing psychedelics to sugar and social media?
|
| Unless psilocybin is thoroughly tested and validated as a
| treatment that is as safe as SSRI, I don't think it's
| really worthwhile to jump into the psilocybin train.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Yeaaa, SSRI isn't safe by any means.
|
| It won't kill you for sure. But a 100% loss in sex drive
| isn't really something people actually want. Took a year
| after stopping SSRIs to get back.
| boloust wrote:
| At the doses in question here, SSRIs have a terrible side
| effect profile when compared with psilocybin.
| pbadenski wrote:
| In a sense, yes - I believe the damaging effects of sugar
| and social media on the society is far greater than
| psychedelics might have if decriminalised.
|
| They definitely don't deserve to be Class A in the UK and
| Schedule I in the US. Even more so, they shouldn't be
| classified as Schedule I by the United Nations.
|
| I'm not sure about using it regularly, but people have
| been using these for ceremonies for centuries. I
| personally believe the choice should be left with an
| individual.
| singingfish wrote:
| SSRI's can be not terribly safe as well. In some people
| their use leads to extremely unsafe impulsive behaviour
| and which itself can lead to suicide.
| mellavora wrote:
| Fortunately, "as safe as SSRI" is a pretty low bar.
|
| Should we also compare the risk of addiction/dependence?
| Oh, yes, lets do!
|
| Hey, while we are at it, shall we also compare
| effectiveness? 2 doses vs 6 weeks? Oh, wait, that's what
| the study did.
|
| I wonder how many different types of psilocybin they had
| to test to find the effect one for these particular
| patients. Because, you know, getting the "right" SSRI
| based coctail is actual quite hard, many people go
| through three or four different variants before finding
| the one which they think works.
|
| Yes, I'll bet they had to compare at least as many types
| of psylocybin before they found the combo that worked.
| Right?
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Psychedelics can definitely trigger or exacerbate mental
| health issues. A few years ago my group of friends lost
| someone to schizophrenia after he started micro-dosing LSD
| daily.
|
| I've tried many of these substances, and know people who
| have gone a lot further, so I'm not speaking out of
| ignorance here. There are risks to these things, and it's
| not a positive experience for everyone. Giving people a
| warning about that is entirely reasonable.
| awillen wrote:
| It's not a useful warning, though - what would someone do
| with that?
|
| It's like saying "driving in a car is dangerous, and many
| people art hurt every year doing so." Okay, so what? Are
| you saying everyone should stop driving? It's just not
| useful - compare it to something like telling people to
| wear a seatbelt or pointing out that driving in
| particular conditions is especially dangerous. Those are
| things that we can use to drive more safely. Saying
| vaguely that driving can be dangerous doesn't serve any
| useful purpose.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Because many people in this thread have no knowledge or
| experience with these substances, so giving them accurate
| information is useful. I'd say it's even necessary given
| there's a group of enthusiasts that very clearly over
| hype the benefits and make absurd claims like it's
| impossible to have a bad time, to over use them, etc. I
| want people to have a balanced view of what they may be
| interested in trying, vs that nonsense. Otherwise they're
| possibly setting themselves up for a bad trip at the
| least.
| hnmullany wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7034876/
|
| Be conservative with dosage, don't do multiple doses in the
| same session & don't use with other drugs
| PedroBatista wrote:
| I don't know if they are "special" compared to those, but
| you seem to imply they are the same.
|
| You seem so laser focused on the promising side of things
| that you completely "forget" each substance is different
| and it's use has serious consequences if abused, if not
| then do heroine.
| pbadenski wrote:
| Oh I definitely don't think it's the same. I would argue
| the items I have listed above are significantly more
| damaging to society than mushrooms.
|
| On the subject of heroin, what about more dangerous
| psychoactive substance - ethanol? See
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210 and
| https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-
| lanc...
| tmountain wrote:
| Agreed, I'm not here to insert my opinion about the
| therapeutic qualities of psilocybin, but I find vague
| anecdotal quips like this very frustrating. If there's
| validity to these treatments, let's let the science prove
| out. There's no point in trying to discourage folks from
| having an open mind about something that may turn out to
| help a lot of people.
| [deleted]
| acchow wrote:
| In what way were their minds ruined?
| vermilingua wrote:
| Any psychadelics (and I think cannabis as well, but much
| more rarely) can cause a psychotic break, which can't
| always be recovered from. It seems to be more prevalent if
| there is a family history of psychosis.
|
| No source, just anecdata, the circles I run in.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I would say "trigger" a psychotic break rather than
| cause. Other possible triggers include going away to
| college, and the break-up of a relationship.
| vmception wrote:
| Even with cannabis, states have no FDA that is prepared
| to do studies and I just wish a basic level of known side
| effects were listed from the actual FDA which they do for
| studied and much more harmful drugs, because they were
| studied
|
| When you add all the other scheduled drugs that have no
| state level recreational framework, then you no studies
| _and_ you also have a compounded supply chain problem
| where nobody knows what they're actually consuming
|
| There are molecule combinations out there which can cause
| instant parkinson's disease
|
| nobody can give a real case about "the friend of friend"
| who went crazy because of the illegality and imagined or
| real liability
|
| and its not fair to say "this drug is perfectly safe stop
| fearmongering, oh wait you should have known about your
| family history of schizophrenia never mind then lol too
| late, but everyone else dont listen to that person" this
| isn't directed at you, just a collection of things said
| in the psychadelic community pretty reliably
|
| bothersome.
| Covzire wrote:
| >nobody can give a real case about "the friend of friend"
| who went crazy
|
| This is a very good point. I'm not going to suggest that
| the commonly cited anecdotes are all wrong or misguided,
| but a lot of well meaning people throw around anecdotes
| but just like a discussion about flat earthers, everyone
| knows about them but virtually nobody seems to actually
| know any personally.
|
| In 2016 the National Highway Traffic Safety
| Administration (NHTSA) cited 37,461 people died due to
| automobile accidents. Those are easily traceable numbers
| because they create a tremendous amount of paperwork and
| news articles.
|
| But with psychedelics there is a very odd disconnect
| between the perception of their danger and the extreme
| lack of actual medical/scientific evidence that actually
| gets cited.
| bigfudge wrote:
| > There are molecule combinations out there which can
| cause instant parkinson's disease
|
| Is this real or exaggeration for effect? It sounds
| implausible...
| vmception wrote:
| With 3 days of use. Parkisons disease in 20 years old.
|
| Simulatable in primates and mice by giving them this
| drug.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000360.htm
|
| Be careful out there, test your drugs.
| vmception wrote:
| (*Within 3 days after use)
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion
|
| It's not instant but it's very scary stuff and 100%
| incurable.
| giantg2 wrote:
| There are some studies on PubMed around this. I remember
| hearing about one that the DoD did involving soldiers who
| used cannabis and mental illnesses. I wasn't able to find
| that, but here's a similar one.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2892048/
| spoiler wrote:
| Not OP, but there can be a few things they're alluring to.
|
| Some disassociatives are often put into the "psychedelic,"
| and they can cause addiction. Ketamine begin an example.
| People begin chasing the previous high, which often means
| higher doses and more money.
|
| Some more ignorant people put MDMA (and family) of drugs
| into this category as well. These drugs are highly
| neurotoxic, and require a lot of "prep" to take to reduce
| their neurotoxicity (it's arguable to what degree this prep
| helps). Moreover frequent user of this can in some people
| (ie people succeptible to depression) cause a long-term
| disbalance in their serotonin system (some people take
| weeks to recover from even one usage).
|
| People who have some mental "precondition" (eg such as
| psychosis, etc) can have some extremely severe response and
| permanent "side effects" (for a lackeof better expressions)
| from psychedelics, and never recover.
|
| An extremely small percentage of people have what's called
| Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD). Some
| people find it fun, some don't mind it, while some can't
| function because of it.
|
| Quality of substance you acquire can also vary. On the
| black market things are often mislabelled or cut with other
| substances that are easier/cheaper to produce. One notable
| examples is NBOMe being sold as LSD. NBOMe is more
| dangerous for a few reasons that I won't be getting into in
| this post. Always test your stuff with test kits, or if
| you're not comfortable with that, sense a small bit of your
| batch to a testing lab (there's a few anonymous/free ones
| in Europe).
|
| Lastly, there's always ignorance or risk of being too
| "casual" about taking psychedelic due to familiarity with
| them. This leads to accidental drug combinations (eg some
| antidepressants + some psychedelics) don't combined well.
| Aimee just diminished the other, but people reported more
| severe symptoms. People also combine things recreationally
| without researching things properly, which can be a bad
| combo. Speaking of antidepressants and psychedelics: a
| notable thing to mention is that Lithium salts and LSD have
| been reported to lead to terors, seizures, and maybe even
| death (as reported on erowid).
|
| I'm not trying to discourage or encourage people from
| psychedelics. In my personal experience, they can be
| wonderful and provide healing experiences. However, we need
| to always be careful when using them, because they have
| such a profound effect on our minds, and we still
| understand so little about the mind itself. With that in
| mind (no pun intended), treat them with respect they
| deserve!
| spoiler wrote:
| Off-topic: writing long form text on a phone is such a
| chore. I can't edit the typos anymore, but just to
| clarify: "Aimee" was meant to be "mostly they". There's
| also a few words dropped here and there, but it doesn't
| impact readability as much.
| rednum wrote:
| Not OP, but I've met people that seemed to sort of lost
| their agency and ambition, because their psychedelic
| insight was that the universe will sort everything out on
| its own. Though maybe the causality is the other way round
| here - they were not ambitious in the first place and
| psychedelic insight helped rationalise that.
|
| Also disclaimer: I'm not trying to discourage or encourage
| people from psychedelics. Personally I believe they should
| not be criminalised, but people should be cautious using
| them.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Just a personal note, I experienced the complete
| opposite. I knew I wanted to do great things and
| accomplish things of importance, but depression was like
| a black cloud holding me back from doing so. Psychedelics
| took away that cloud and also infused a deep level of
| meaning into my everyday life.
|
| I went from depressed and basically dropping off the edge
| of the world to traveling across the world and starting a
| startup with new friends in a different continent, which
| was just now recently acquired.
|
| What might interest you is all the psychedelics I did
| were technically legal. Shoutout to 4-AcO-DMT and 4-HO-
| DMT.
| rednum wrote:
| > What might interest you is all the psychedelics I did
| were technically legal. Shoutout to 4-AcO-DMT and 4-HO-
| DMT.
|
| They are both illegal where I live (Poland). The
| government maintains a huge list of forbidden substances
| (link only in polish: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wykaz
| _%C5%9Brodk%C3%B3w_odurza...). This is in response to a
| big designer drugs crisis that started over decade ago.
| Which most likely than not was caused by tightening of
| the drug laws happened around two decades ago. It's a bad
| situation that will take another decade to improve, I
| suppose.
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| 4-HO-DMT is psilocin, which is illegal in most places.
| temp0826 wrote:
| Fwiw 4-HO-DMT is psilocin (it and psilocybin are both in
| mushrooms in varying amounts; and psilocybin metabolizes
| into it in the body). It probably wasn't legal. 4-AcO-DMT
| is a bit more of a grey area (probably covered by the
| analogues act; allegedly also metabolizes to psilocin in
| the body too).
| sebmellen wrote:
| You're very right, that was a late-night bleary-eyed
| mistake. 4-HO-MET (thanks to TiHKAL) is what I meant to
| type.
| maxmamis wrote:
| doesn't sound like their "minds were ruined", but rather
| that they have different priorities than you and that
| you're narrowminded and judgemental.
| Leparamour wrote:
| >but rather that they have different priorities than you
| and that you're narrowminded and judgemental.
|
| Having been loosely affiliated with the Goa/Psytrance
| scene, I too, have met some individuals who seemed to
| have "fried" their brains.
|
| If those "different priorities", how you call it, also
| include being almost dysfunctional and therefore
| dependent on constant external support, paranoid and
| frequently incoherent then, yes, it made me judgmental
| too.
|
| And this isn't even speaking of phenomena like
| Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD)[1].
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_
| percep...
| bigfudge wrote:
| The thing is, it's not at all clear this was caused by
| psychedelics, so much as psychedelics and the lifestyle
| that goes with it shape the sort of dysfunction we
| observe.
|
| If they had been in the midwestern USA would they also be
| dysfunctional but taking prescription painkillers? Mental
| health problems are common, and confirmation bias is
| real.
|
| There is also the danger of reverse causation -- and this
| may apply to cannabis. The epidemiology there suggests
| psychosis may cause people to take cannabis at higher
| rates, rather than the reverse.
|
| Finally... I've also often wondered what partying so hard
| would do without the drugs. I've experienced festivals
| both with and without recreational drugs and it often
| feels like the sleep deprivation and over-stimulation
| have as large an effect on my subsequent mood as the
| drugs did.
| Leparamour wrote:
| >so much as psychedelics and the lifestyle that goes with
| it shape the sort of dysfunction we observe.
|
| I wondered about this myself.
|
| I think it is hard to pinpoint exactly since festival-
| goers often also consume a mix of different substances
| (the infamous "candy flipping") including alcohol instead
| of just straight mushrooms or LSD.
| maxmamis wrote:
| i was responding to the parent's description of people
| having "lost their ambition." not everyone needs
| ambition, and ambition can be destructive.
|
| what you're describing sounds like psychosis which is
| entirely different
| hervature wrote:
| This is why research is needed. My gut feeling is that the
| root cause is overdosing. Just search "How often can I do
| shrooms" on Quora and you get the gamut from "1 or 2 times
| per year", to "microdosing everyday, macrodose every weekend,
| and hero dose every month".
| high_priest wrote:
| This is why, even though I stand firm behind the fact, that
| psychedelic experiences changed my life, I stay sceptic
| about changing body/brain chemistry over longer periods of
| time.
|
| I used to macrodose and get immensely creative over a week
| or so. With a happy outlook on nature and all things
| uncontrollable around me.
|
| But then the high died some day. Lethargy came back. Lack
| of actual structure and the 'happy go lucky' attitude
| derailed whatever tied my past with plans for the future.
|
| Microdosing seemed to help from time to time, but mostly I
| just get distracted with random consumption instead of
| planned, structured and thought through creation.
| junon wrote:
| Why is this being downvoted? Studies are great, but let's not
| act like drugs are suddenly safe to use in all cases. I'm
| sure the studies didn't conclude that.
|
| Be pro-shrooms but don't act like they're safe in every case.
| Education is required before partaking in anything, let alone
| shrooms.
| nabla9 wrote:
| The subject has been studied. There is no good evidence
| supporting that. Cause and effect is not easy to separate
| and anecdotal evidence is just anecdotal.
|
| People who are not well are known to 'self medicate'.
|
| For example: Increase of alcohol use among people with
| preexisting problems is well documented. Link between
| tobacco use and schizophrenia is also well documented. See:
| "Smoking and schizophrenia"
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19794359/ _" It has been
| suggested that smoking may be an attempt by schizophrenic
| patients to alleviate cognitive deficits and to reduce
| extrapyramidal side-effects induced by antipsychotic
| medication."_
|
| Psychedelics are not the type of drug people keep using if
| it harms them. If they don't work for you, you really don't
| want to do them again.
|
| (ps. I would not recommend _regular_ drug use of any kind)
| standardUser wrote:
| Can we point to any data showing that mushrooms or acid
| (for example) are more dangerous than, say, a coronavirus
| vaccine or driving a car?
|
| Because generally speaking, unless something is concretely
| documented as dangerous we don't just assume it is
| dangerous "because". Especially when that "because" is
| because of a well-documented, decades-long propaganda
| campaign by the federal government.
| dave_sullivan wrote:
| How many is a lot? I've been around a lot of people that do
| psychedelics, and have done them myself quite a bit. No
| issues to report.
|
| It is a crime that they've been locked away for so long due
| to Nixon and scare mongers. So many people in jail because of
| it. Legalize it already, sheesh.
| Covzire wrote:
| Care to give a few anecdotes?
| singingfish wrote:
| You'd want to be clear on how much of that was caused by the
| setting in which they took psychedelics before making a
| pronouncement.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Setting is definitely important, as is choice. One of the
| big problems with illegal psychedelics is that people
| aren't sure what they are getting. For instance, DOB and
| MDMA both come in pill form, but have _wildly_ different
| effects.
|
| Some of the worst outcomes I've seen have come when one
| drug is believed to be another, and this is something that
| decriminalisation would definitely help with.
|
| That being said, psychedelics have traditionally been
| combined with ritual, and the lack of said rituals can be a
| big impediment to useful results.
| vmception wrote:
| > decriminalisation
|
| no only recreational legalization would do that
| tremon wrote:
| Here in NL, large festivals have drug testing booths,
| where the visitors can have their drugs tested so they
| know what they'll be ingesting. That's possible because
| of decriminalisation and destigmatization.
|
| Legalization would allow the government to create a
| testing infrastructure so drugs can be tested/validated
| before they're sold, that's arguably better. But it's
| definitely possible to create a safer drug environment
| with decriminalisation only.
| vmception wrote:
| Drug testing is possible here in the US with overt
| criminalization.
|
| Decriminalization is just marginally safer. Testing is a
| huge waste of resources unless its a stopgap towards
| recreational legalization with a reliable supply chain.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Most likely because they have done normal or high doses too
| frequently.
| astura wrote:
| Definitely not the case for the people I know. One trip
| caused permanent psychosis in one case.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Perhaps they were susceptible to it, then. Permanent
| psychosis though? Is that really a thing?
| vmception wrote:
| who what why when where how
|
| ever notice how all these stories lack that?
|
| all?
|
| look, don't respond to why that might be, but lets just
| all push for the study and a legal framework that allows
| for said studies to exist
| giantg2 wrote:
| Here's a summary with links to studies.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-
| induced_psychosis
| vmception wrote:
| > F16.5 hallucinogens (LSD and others)[citation needed]
|
| no studies found.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm not sure what this is responding to. The prior
| comments were asking about details around potential
| permanent psychiatric issues. There's some stuff in here
| about psychosis turning into schizophrenia, etc. It's
| rare, but we also can't dismiss it.
| mkeespiet wrote:
| I have heard this too, but mostly because there where looking
| for something that is not there. Example: if finding your
| true yourself is like peeling of an onion, the can peel a
| lot, but at some point, the reach the core where there is
| nothing to peel anymore. I have never reach this state and it
| is not at all my goal. I think it has something to do with
| ego. Doing psychedelics makes ego less important. But if you
| do it too much, you lose your ego too. Living without ego is
| not possible in my opinion..
| Gatsky wrote:
| At least some of this could be the tendency of people with
| pre-existing mental illness to self-medicate. High smoking
| rates amongst people with schizophrenia is an example.
| Smoking seems to ameliorate some psychotic symptoms.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I've also read that many alcoholics are using alcohol to
| relieve their symptoms. The article was in relation to the
| homeless community.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| I know a bunch of people who went totally nuts with the aid
| of drugs; but I know even more people that never touched any
| drugs who went off the deep end with the aid of media,
| romantic relationships, religion, politics, etc.
| pwr33 wrote:
| Which psychedelics?
|
| I've pushed the limits with many tryptamines (at least
| 300-400 discrete experiences) and 15 years later my cognitive
| abilities are measurably excellent.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| I get it - a drug is a drug - and like all drugs I am not
| saying that psychedelics are a cure all for all people.
|
| What I am saying is that it is depressing that we are only
| just seeing reports from formal sources that psychedelics
| could be useful for some people.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there were formal studies decades ago
| showing potential use and positive outcomes (I think
| Stamets books from the 90s reference some formal studies,
| but i could be wrong). But like a lot of medical research,
| it never progressed to a market state. I think that's
| especially true in this case due to the legal
| classification around it.
| mellavora wrote:
| I hear that LSD made the cover of Time magazine 5 times
| as a wonder drug, curing depression etc. That was
| pre-1970.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah, they were able to bring LSD into therapeutic use
| before it was essentially outlawed. I believe there was
| one dominant practice in California that became well
| known as specialists and there were articles written
| about them and the celebrities that were treated there.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I mean we could just discuss the issue of freedom and
| making it illegal for people to grow and consume a mushroom
| and stop making it about just drugs. Marijuana is the same
| way. If it isn't for someone then they shouldn't do it and
| we should make as much information available about
| something available and provide safe environments, but
| making it illegal especially when plenty of people have
| experienced positive effects sometimes profound religious
| experiences it is just another mechanism of control and
| taking away freedom and natural rights.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Freedom is indeed one narrative. What is being
| (re-)constructed here is a narrative about plant
| medicine. The concepts used in each narrative are very
| different, so if we discussing both at the same time may
| confound each other.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| True, but the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
| happiness as stated in the United States Declaration of
| Independence has it covered pretty well. Growing your own
| mushrooms or marijuana does not restrict on other
| individual rights if they do so willingly, and therefore
| getting caught up in treating it like a drug that needs
| to be studied more before they consider making it more
| accessible seems a bit absurd IMO. They're not being made
| in labs and grow naturally in many parts of the US.
| curation wrote:
| I collect opinions about what 'minds were ruined by
| psychedelics' - how do you define that?
| pims wrote:
| Would your friend have advice or resources on how to give
| microdosing a try, especially for people who've never done
| psychedelics?
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Your best bet is to find a local friend or acquaintance who
| does have experience who can talk to you in detail about it
| and help source etc.
|
| Reddit is a good source of anecdotal information:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/7fv5oj/beginner.
| ..
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/
|
| This is also good:
|
| https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/microdosing-guide-and-
| explain...
| pims wrote:
| Thank you.
| mkeespiet wrote:
| I have quit some experience, would happy to help you out
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| I don't want to live in a world where the solution to depression
| (caused by governments, politicians, or general existence in the
| modern capitalist world) is a drug. Not a good idea.
|
| Instead, figure out _why_ depression has increased so
| dramatically in the last ~century and address that.
| mahathu wrote:
| > why depression has increased so dramatically in the last
| ~century and address that
|
| has it? Were our current guidelines to diagnose depressive
| episodes with around a century ago?
| jerrygoyal wrote:
| > has it?
|
| an anecdote but i think yes. pre-internet you wouldn't know
| what's happening outside of your community. Now, internet
| (IG, tiktok, fb, TechCrunch) surfaces the best of the world
| before your eyes.. it's a constant reminder there exist
| better people in whatever area you value (could be a skill,
| appearance, material things)
| goodpoint wrote:
| Ye, it has, and also many other forms of mental illness.
|
| > Were our current guidelines to diagnose depressive episodes
| with around a century ago?
|
| Certainly not, but researchers are very capable of looking at
| historical records and detect evidence to treated or
| untreated conditions.
|
| Furthermore, people have been describing their own emotions
| and other people's behaviors since recorded history.
|
| There's an army of psychologists, anthropologist,
| sociologists and geneticists out there studying the history
| of mental illness. Among many, prof. Sapolsky comes to mind.
| Viker wrote:
| But you don't mind the current state of affairs where everyone
| is being ingested with sugar and caffeine? Are those not drugs?
|
| Office productivity is directly corrolated to the coffe
| machine. The moment that breaks down everything stops.
| Coincidence, or are we all addicted to a drug?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Where did I say anything about caffeine and its
| acceptability?
|
| Don't read things into my comments that aren't there.
| [deleted]
| ewindal wrote:
| I didn't know my father's suicide and my subsequent depression
| was caused by governments, politicians, or general existence in
| the modern capitalist world. Thanks for giving me this deep
| insight.
| the_only_law wrote:
| You already live in that world now. What do you think think
| they give your for depression?
| pengaru wrote:
| I don't want to live in a world where how you want the world to
| look affects my freedom to eat certain foods.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Nowhere did I say that prohibition is a good idea. The
| article isn't about that, it's about using drugs to "cure"
| depression.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| In cases where depression is caused by whackadoodle brain
| chemistry, this might actually be a completely reasonable
| answer.
| solaceb wrote:
| We don't know whackadoodle brain chemistry from Adam;
| it's a _massive_ assumption to attribute depression
| towards something so misunderstood as our neurochemistry.
| You might as well say it 's due to the phlogiston in our
| heads.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| My life experience falls pretty far outside the Overton
| Window. Suffice it to say: I don't agree.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Yes probably, but the most upvoted example in this topic
| is about curing depression from lockdowns.
|
| I don't want to live in a world where the cure to
| depression caused by forced lockdowns is to take
| psychedelics. That seems very dystopian.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| What causes depression during lockdown? Is it lack of
| exposure to sunlight? Is it lack of exercise? Is it
| eating more poorly? Is it people being confined to spaces
| that may not be that clean that they normally leave
| during the day, thus exposing them to more mold and
| germs?
|
| It isn't necessarily dystopian. It may still be a valid
| and genuine treatment, though I agree it would be better
| to understand more thoroughly _why_ it works, not just
| _that_ it works.
|
| A former medical professional once told me "The answers
| you want for how this OTC drug works at the cellular
| level don't exist. That isn't actually what drug studies
| cover."
|
| I don't disagree with your aims. I simply disagree with
| some of your implicit assumptions.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| What are my implicit assumptions? That locking human
| beings in their houses is by default a negative thing
| that will cause depression?
|
| That seems obvious to me. Animals don't like being in
| cages.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| That it's merely psychological, not biological.
|
| I'm not depressed. I'm a brunette for the first time in a
| decade or more. I live without a car and the sun
| typically keeps my hair bleached out to a shade of
| blonde.
|
| But I have a serious medical condition and already did
| remote work and germ control is my life.
|
| I had a longstanding issue resolve about six months. For
| the first time in decades, I'm mostly not suicidal
| anymore.
|
| To whatever degree depression is biological in origin,
| drugs may be a reasonable treatment.
|
| Granted, curing sick building syndrome and other root
| causes may be better in the long run. But it can take
| ages to confidently identify such things, educate people,
| find solutions, etc.
|
| In the mean time, a new drug option for a biologically
| based ailment may do wonders for people in the here and
| now.
|
| I routinely treat somatopsychic issues with diet and
| exercise. I also routinely get dismissed by internet
| strangers as a nutter.
|
| So I'm confident that the answer you want both exists and
| will take an excessively long time to distribute to a
| meaningful portion of the human population.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Where do you live that you are locked in your house? I
| haven't seen that where I am.
| flyGuyOnTheSly wrote:
| Ingesting Magic Mushrooms definitely makes me feel better.
|
| I have been micro dosing for months now and loving it.
| mikkelam wrote:
| could just be placebo https://elifesciences.org/articles/62878
| philshem wrote:
| Due to recent decriminalizations and booming medical research,
| there are also some publicly traded companies one can invest in:
|
| https://psychedelicinvest.com/index/
|
| https://www.horizonsetfs.com/etf/psyk
|
| (disclaimer: I own shares in many of these companies)
| yreg wrote:
| For more discussion on this topic there is /r/shroomstocks[0]
|
| And PsilocybinAlpha[1] monitors companies in the sector.
|
| [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/shroomstocks/
|
| [1] https://psilocybinalpha.com/
| philshem wrote:
| > This community is available in the app
|
| https://i.reddit.com/r/shroomstocks/
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/shroomstocks/
| CabSauce wrote:
| Just mild warning for folks considering this. These companies
| are highly speculative. (They're also mostly down 20-30% in the
| last couple months.)
| philshem wrote:
| Indeed, some companies are highly speculative. But in the ETF
| are also J&J (ketamine nose spray for drug-resistant
| depression) and AbbVie (acquired Allergan).
| high_priest wrote:
| In a gist, how would one go about making such investment?
| Should I talk to a pro broker?
| t1mmen wrote:
| Most of the tickers are traded on Canadian exchanges (NEO,
| TSX.V, CSE). If you're in the US, I believe Interactive
| Brokers (and others) will let you buy stocks at these
| exchanges. You can do all this self-directed, no need to
| involve a processional.
|
| If your current broker doesn't allow Canadian venture/OTC
| stocks, $CMPS is the only ticker traded on NASDAQ so far.
| $MMED is expected to uplist to NASDAQ in the near future.
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