[HN Gopher] First federal grant for psychedelic treatment resear...
___________________________________________________________________
First federal grant for psychedelic treatment research in 50 years
Author : infodocket
Score : 490 points
Date : 2021-10-18 21:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hopkinsmedicine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hopkinsmedicine.org)
| cletus wrote:
| Here's a fun fact: since 1968, only one US institution, the
| University of Mississippi, has had a Federal license to grow
| marijuana for medical research [1], although this may be
| (finally) changing [2]. The barriers to Federally funded medical
| research of cannabis remain significant [3]. It's almost like the
| University of Mississippi and the Federal government are doing
| everything they can to stymie research and limit access.
|
| Also, cannabis remains a Schedule 1 drug at the Federal level.
| Schedule 1 drugs are "drugs of abuse" that have "no accepted
| medical use" [4], the same as methamphetamine and crack cocaine
| (and of course it's worth mentioning that powdered cocaine is the
| less serious Schedule 3).
|
| All the while ~18 states have legalized recreational and/or
| medical cannabis at the state level [5].
|
| The case for the continued criminalization is beyond ridiculous.
|
| I fully support decriminalization and further study of the effect
| of psychedelics but I'm not confident that the US government,
| even with a Democratic president, a Democratic House and a
| (notionally) Democratic Senate won't make this as difficult as
| possible.
|
| The roots of US criminalization of cannabis and psychadelics is
| rooted in racism (eg crack cocaine vs powder cocaine), cracking
| down on counterculturalism and anti-Vietnam protesters (ie the
| hippy movement of the 60s and 70s) and virtue signaling to a
| conservative and fearful voter base under the guise of "law and
| order" and "family values".
|
| It's truly ridiculous we're still here some 50+ years later.
|
| [1]: https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/nations-only-
| federally-a...
|
| [2]: https://mjbizdaily.com/dea-preparing-to-ok-companies-to-
| grow...
|
| [3]: https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/natural-
| products/Ca...
|
| [4]: https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling
|
| [5]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._j....
| tclancy wrote:
| I'm 100% with you, but this country will forever be legislating
| the fact their neighbors might be happy and enjoying life. And
| then the fact so much race enters into it too as you mention,
| just makes it addictive for certain people. It's like crack or
| something.
| wk_end wrote:
| Although there may be more nefarious reasons behind why crack
| is penalized more harshly under the law than cocaine, that
| scheduling is at least technically correct: powdered cocaine is
| indeed used as a medical anesthetic, whereas crack isn't used
| for anything medically.
|
| The classification of marijuana as not having any medical use
| despite being used to treat all sorts of ailments all over the
| country is, of course, ridiculous.
|
| Now that I think about it - regardless of your stance on
| recreational drug prohibition - it does seem strange to tie
| penalties for illicit use or sale of a drug with whether or not
| the drug has so-called legitimate uses.
| cletus wrote:
| It's worth adding that the DEA scheduling classification is a
| little weird. Example: fentanyl is a Schedule 1 drug but it's
| an extremely potent opiate that is prescribed typically to
| end-stage cancer patients and others in extreme pain.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Fentanyl is schedule 2, as is methamphetamine [1]. I'm not
| sure why certain users repeatedly claim they are schedule 1
| despite being able to easily verify that they are not. This
| isn't the first time I've had this back and forth on HN.
|
| [1] https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Drugs%2
| 0of%2...
| nick__m wrote:
| Meth is not schedule 1, it's sold under prescription under the
| name of Desoxyn !!! According to the weird US federal drug
| schedule weed is more abusable that Meth...
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Don't forget Adderall which is very similar.
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| Drugs are bad. But alcohol is good for you and you should
| definitely drink to make friends and influence people.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Don't forget cigarettes as well. Time to get your mandatory
| vaccination cause the government cares so much about health.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Are you saying cigarettes are good, or vaccines are bad? I'm
| not following.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I'm saying that government doesn't have your health in
| mind, whether it be the vaccine, cigarettes, alcohol,
| sugar, health care, etc. They laugh all the way to the
| bank.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The nicotine vaccine, surely.
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| One can only _hope_ for something close to this in Southeast Asia
| : (
| bwest87 wrote:
| A friend and I did a "guided" psychedelic session earlier this
| year. We did it individually over one weekend. It was great. She
| did it for more therapeutic reasons. I did it more for
| philosophy/spiritual reasons. But the two main things I took away
| are 1.) Guided sessions are qualitatively different than
| recreational sessions, and 2.) It is such a crying shame that
| this isn't an accepted "tool in the toolbox" for therapists.
|
| It's not about having crazy life altering, world-bending
| experiences (though that can happen). It's just about helping you
| get into a state of mind that allows for an effective therapy
| session. Sort of like... would you want to do your therapy
| session in a crowded bar, next to your mom? No, probably not. We
| all recognize that such a setting would not be conducive to good
| therapy. So similarly, we should be able to recognize that having
| the right setting, both mentally and physically can affect the
| quality of your session. Psychadelics can do exactly this.
|
| It's also worth noting my friend has done "regular" therapy for 2
| years, and she felt like there was a step change after the guided
| session. Her therapist noticed it as well.
|
| When you consider that pain meds have ruined literally millions
| of lives through addiction, and that also virtually (maybe
| literally?) no one has ever died due to overdose of psilocybin,
| it's very confusing why one is prescribed all the time, and the
| other is considered incredibly dangerous. The U.S.'s perspective
| on drugs is so very backwards.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| >pain meds have ruined literally millions of lives through
| addiction
|
| Unpopular opinion: opioids are _massively_ under-prescribed for
| those that actually _need_ them.
|
| Addiction is a mental illness. That's whats killing so many,
| but why is to so few question what is actually causing such
| terrible emotional pain that must be self-medicated with
| incredibly potent medicaments?
|
| Why is it that instead of acknowledging the rather
| uncomfortable root cause of those deaths, we just default to
| the so much simpler scapegoat, pills (the active ingredient in
| which has been with us in one form or another since 5000 BC),
| and pretend everything else is just rainbows and unicorns?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > opioids are massively under-prescribed for those that
| actually need them.
|
| Absolutely.
|
| While reports of ODs are endlessly bullhorned, millions in
| pain get demonized by algorithmic opioid blacklists, get
| ignored by news orgs/legislators addicted to opioid hysteria
| and get gaslighted by a public who only hears the
| bullhorning.
|
| I have a lifelong friend with visibly crippling arthritis. He
| lost access to effective pain meds after the state passed a
| 3-day-max on opioids (passed >10 years after the pill-mill
| problem abated). Over the year that followed the law's
| passage, every Dr in his network (along with most Drs in the
| state) ~stopped Rx opioids. The (now fewer) pain mgt clinics
| are overloaded and not accepting patients.
|
| His remaining avenues for pain relief no longer involve Dr's.
|
| I had emergency abdominal surgery this year and had to
| convince the discharging Dr to prescribe Tramadol. Our new
| normal is for ERs/Hospitals to undermedicate patients in pain
| with OTC analgesics.
|
| So yeah. Shout out to folks who are hand-waving away millions
| in pain - because pharma is greedy or because folks can't
| differentiate responsible Rx opioids from street fentanyl
| (that many in chronic pain turned to in desperation after
| they were cut off from safer pain relief).
| jdc wrote:
| > Why is it that instead of acknowledging the rather
| uncomfortable root cause of those deaths, we just default to
| the so much simpler scapegoat, pills (the active ingredient
| in which has been with us in one form or another since 5000
| BC), and pretend everything else is just rainbows and
| unicorns?
|
| Okay, I'll take mushrooms, which have _actually_ been with us
| since then, and you take synthetic intravenous opioids and we
| 'll see who fares better.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| My comment was specifically about people that _need_ them
| _prescribed_. For pain relief, injuries, chronic pain, and
| so on. Opioids are very effective and are vilified for no
| good reason, along with a few other classes of substances.
|
| Not as in substitution therapy, like methadone. I do hope
| that mushrooms help people come off of long-term
| substitution.
| refurb wrote:
| Opioids (opium) have been around as long as mushrooms. Just
| because they are synthetic variations doesn't mean they are
| that different.
| jdc wrote:
| Alright, go ahead and get on a regular IV fentanyl regime
| and let me know how that goes for you.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| It has nothing to do with the synthetic, people destroy
| themselves on straight-from-the-poppy-plant heroin as
| well.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| I think you're underestimating how destructive fentanyl
| is compared to almost any other opioid.
| refurb wrote:
| Generally I've heard fentanyl is a poor substitute for
| heroin.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| What does fentanyl have to do with people who were cut
| off, people who - for years/decades - responsibly used Rx
| opiods to manage chronic debilitating pain?
|
| Unless you're talking about people in pain who were
| forced to the street, after Dr's were (en masse) hazed
| into stopping pain treatment. In that case, I get your
| point.
| stadium wrote:
| > why is to so few question what is actually causing such
| terrible emotional pain that must be self-medicated with
| incredibly potent medicaments?
|
| > Why is it that instead of acknowledging the rather
| uncomfortable root cause of those deaths, we just default to
| the so much simpler scapegoat, pills
|
| Missing from these arguments is the role of criminalizing
| addiction versus treating it as the mental health issue you
| accurately described. And ignoring the pharmicuitical and
| lobbying industries behind the same pills.
|
| I don't think it's a valid argument to reassign blame from
| the potency and availability of pills, to unmet mental health
| needs. They are related and intertwined, sure, but
| correlation != causation.
|
| Case in point, the Purdue Pharma Sacklers settled for
| $billions (which also bought their immunity from future
| prosecution) precisely because they were pushing hard drugs
| and preying on those same people mental health issues [0].
| Predatory, sociopathic behavior. But pill are a scapegoat?
| Sorry, that's a hot load of b.s.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1031053251/sackler-family-
| imm...
| inter_netuser wrote:
| I don't disagree there are bad actors. Dissolving Purdue (I
| thought they were dissolved, not just fined?) is great. Bad
| actors should be punished. And yes, criminalizing medical
| issue such as addiction is terrible. All of these are
| fairly obvious, which is why I didn't spell them out.
|
| As I'm sure you know, many cases of mental illness are
| triggered by some sort of precipitating event.
|
| I don't believe for a minute the fact that someone gave
| those addicts an opioid pill was the actual trigger.
| Instead it was something that happened way before that:
| some emotional trauma, PTSD, disadvantaged background,
| chronic illness, no life/career prospects, war, despair,
| etc, etc, so many stressors this life can bless you with.
| The Big Bad Pill is just what the addicts came across and
| realized it helped them feel okay for a moment, that's all
| it is.
|
| E.g. a war veteran ends up getting PTSD and becomes an
| addict(let's assume he has no chronic pain). Aren't the
| circumstances around his life that led him to enlist and
| then develop PTSD are the much more relevant trigger?
| Barring that event, would they even begin using in the
| first place?
|
| Who gave them that precipitating event? Other humans did.
|
| The ugly truth is that the cause of this all is simply us,
| humans stressing other humans. Like other primates, we are
| intelligent enough to the point it takes very little effort
| to provide for our basic needs, and so we spend the rest of
| our time engaging in social status games at the expense of
| others.
|
| Most people who use opioids do not actually become
| addicted. Those who used heroin in Vietnam, most of them
| stopped after they returned and circumstances changed from
| war to normality: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12873239/
|
| "After their return, most of the men who had used heroin in
| Vietnam used it very occasionally or not at all."
|
| "Possible post-Vietnam correlates of heroin injection were
| no job or school enrolment, alcohol problems, depression,
| absent or transient marriage, association with illicit drug
| users and other Vietnam veterans."
|
| The real root cause is that humans are nothing but selfish
| machiavellian apes. We all are about me-me-me-me-me, and
| dig just a bit deeper, most are just as predatory and
| sociopathic as Purdue/Sacklers/whatever, just not as
| capable at getting their way.
|
| We just look away and walk past the addicts in meatspace.
| We are no saints, and the real cause of most human
| suffering is not some processed alkaloid - it's other
| humans.
|
| Not some pharma company or some evil billionaire clan that
| capitalized on this, I'm sure they contributed. There would
| be nothing to capitalize on or sell, if it weren't for
| humans psychologically injuring other humans for fun and
| profit.
|
| Personally, it seems to me that we can recognize and accept
| a physical disability/injury much more readily than
| emotional/psychological one. Same goes for inflicting
| injuries: attempts to fracture someone's limb, a grave
| physical injury, seem too repulsive to even think about,
| and hopefully bystanders will attempt to rescue the victim
| should anyone ever try to do this to anyone. Harassment,
| bullying, hazing, belittling someone "just for laughs" on
| the other hand? All too often, others are more than happy
| to join in on the "fun" and even will gleefully laugh at
| the actual victim.
|
| Of course, nobody likes to think of themselves in that way,
| much too unpleasant, and so we point our collective fingers
| elsewhere. It's always "them", and never "us".
|
| I can only hope that one day we will evolve to finally dish
| out just as harsh punishment for psychological harm as we
| do for bodily harm, and hold each other accountable for it.
| stadium wrote:
| A bunch of things are conflated here that need to be
| untangled. Not all trauma is going to lead to an
| addiction. Not all addiction is to pills or drugs. Not
| everyone who takes opioids is going to form an addiction.
| Not all trauma is intentional and deserves punishment.
|
| The expert in this area is Dr. Gabor Mate. He is highly
| respected in this field. If anyone is interested learning
| about the role of trauma in addiction, he literally wrote
| the book on it, "The Realm of Hungry Ghosts" [0]
|
| From Mate [0]:
|
| > Turning to the neurobiological roots of addiction, Dr.
| Mate presents an astonishing array of scientific evidence
| showing conclusively that:
|
| > 1. addictive tendencies arise in the parts of our
| brains governing some of our most basic and life-
| sustaining needs and functions: incentive and motivation,
| physical and emotional pain relief, the regulation of
| stress, and the capacity to feel and receive love; > 2.
| these brain circuits develop, or don't develop, largely
| under the influence of the nurturing environment in early
| life, and that therefore addiction represents a failure
| of these crucial systems to mature in the way nature
| intended; and > 3. the human brain continues to develop
| new circuitry throughout the lifespan, including well
| into adulthood, giving new hope for people mired in
| addictive patterns. Dr. Mate then examines the current
| mainstream.
|
| [0] https://drgabormate.com/book/in-the-realm-of-hungry-
| ghosts/
| louis___ wrote:
| Would you maybe like to elaborate on what was the details of
| the "guided" aspect of your sessions ?
| agumonkey wrote:
| One session means one time or a few times in one week ?
|
| Do you or her plan to keep doing it ?
| [deleted]
| colhom wrote:
| How are you going to sustain the largest economy on earth if
| your populace isn't hypnotized? Most of the work that needs to
| be done is not intrinsically or spiritually fufilling.
|
| So there must be an alternative synthetic rewards system- which
| inevitably requires some form of mass hypnosis to remain
| dominant in the aggregate psyche.
|
| It's no coincidence that all the research in this space was
| shut down in a hurry right around when the CIA figured out that
| LSD and the pikhal family weren't going to help with this at
| all.
| f0rgot wrote:
| I've always wanted to try a guided session, but I have no idea
| how to even start looking for a guide. I'm in Illinois.
| zhengyi13 wrote:
| Medical tourism? Elsewhere upthread there are specific places
| called out where psilocybin is legal or decriminalized.
| Poking around on the web for therapeutic providers in those
| areas might be an effective strategy.
| elromulous wrote:
| >it's very confusing why one is prescribed all the time, and
| the other is considered incredibly dangerous. The U.S.'s
| perspective on drugs is so very backwards.
|
| The lobbying system. Aka legalized corruption.
| drawkbox wrote:
| > The U.S.'s perspective on drugs is so very backwards.
|
| The War on Drugs is a flaw that needs to end but at least with
| psilocybin US is moving slowly in the right direction. The only
| countries where psilocybin is legal are Brazil, Jamaica, Nepal,
| Samoa, Netherlands (truffle format), British Virgin Islands and
| the Bahamas [1].
|
| Many places are illegal but unenforced though still illegal.
|
| US psilocybin is decriminalized in many places now including
| all drugs in Oregon. More states need to get more like Oregon
| definitely.
|
| However, in most states spores are legal and so are grow kits
| for other types of mycology.
|
| _Grow kits and spores legal in most states, full cultivation
| decriminalized in Seattle, Washington, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
| Denver, Colorado, Santa Cruz, California, Somerville and
| Cambridge, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington D.C._ [1]
|
| _Legal in Oregon for mental health treatment in supervised
| settings since 1 February 2021_ [1]
|
| Full legalization needs to happen for marijuana and
| psychedelics. Decriminalization needs to happen for all drugs
| minimum as well.
|
| As far as marijuana, psilocybin and LSD, they are the least
| toxic and less dependency forming of most drugs, even caffeine,
| aspirin and more. It is a tragedy and a drug dark age that they
| are in the Controlled Substances Act. I believe drugs should
| have to be toxic or cause death to actually be on that list.
| Marijuana, psilocybin and LSD are very safe when it comes to
| toxicity and drug overdoses are non-existent, all would be
| better as legal safer production products.
|
| Legality makes everything safer, increases harm reduction and
| reduces black market unsafe production as well as reduces
| funding of cartels/mafias/bratvas. Their criminality truly
| makes no logical sense except to invite problems.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_psilocybin_mus...
| taurath wrote:
| Just wanted to add that the US led the criminality to spread
| across the globe via the UN.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Psychotropic_S.
| ..
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Yeah. The US pretty much exports its laws. It uses its vast
| economic leverage to impose US laws on everyone else via
| trade agreements, treaties.
|
| It did the same thing with intellectual property. It will
| put sovereign countries in a literal naughty list when they
| don't accomodate US company interests.
| stadium wrote:
| What area are you located, and how did you find your guide?
| Word of mouth?
|
| Not looking so much for specifics, more to understand the
| process.
| vmception wrote:
| Its always so interesting to me to run into people conditioned to
| have a blanket juvenile "anti drugs" view, especially if they are
| US citizens
|
| They cant even tell the difference between substances to say why
| or why not
|
| If thats you, why is that? And is there any specific authority
| you would need to hear from to take another look?
| pksebben wrote:
| I worry that this is NIDA-funded. That institution has history of
| commissioning nonsense studies to maintain prohibitions. [1]
| They're also probably responsible for a series of (failed)
| propaganda pieces focused on maintaining an arbitrarily anti-drug
| culture [2]
|
| 1 http://www.ukcia.org/research/gettman.htm 2
| https://slate.com/technology/2006/09/a-white-house-drug-deal...
| throwaway990909 wrote:
| I was a participant (ie, research subject) in one of the previous
| rounds of studying psilocybin for smoking cessation at Johns
| Hopkins.
|
| I was randomly assigned to the non-psilocybin "control" group. I
| still successfully quit smoking -- the "cognitive behavioral
| therapy" and just general support was great. The researchers
| showed genuine care, it wasn't like being a lab rat.
|
| Because the study was designed with a "crossover" component, I
| still got the option, which I took, to return 6 months later for
| a psilocybin session. The session was interesting, but I wouldn't
| say life-changing. Probably. I am still a non-smoker, over 2
| years after quit date, did the 6-months-post-quit session help?
| Maybe?
|
| Ask me anything! Although I'm not sure what else there is to say!
| sammalloy wrote:
| Just wanted to pipe in here: I quit smoking tobacco in 1995 due
| to the influence of psilocybin. We knew back then it worked. I
| think you need a lot more than just psychedelics to quit
| smoking, however. The first week was easy. The next 11 months
| were hard. After a year, I never wanted a cigarette ever again.
| loceng wrote:
| So what I'm curious about then is the practices/experiences the
| researchers/staff involved used/had in order to provide you
| with the space that you found supportive enough to help you
| quit smoking.
|
| What was the dosing for the session with psilocybin? Did they
| tell you the strain/weight?
| throwaway990909 wrote:
| They told me the weight, but I forget. It was a large
| "heroic" dose. The research protocol is perhaps already
| available somewhere (published paper, pre-print, registered
| study, not sure) which would have the dose.
|
| They used manufactured/sythesized psilocybin compound in a
| capsule, not mushrooms or extracted from mushrooms.
|
| I think they tried to take all the 'best practices' for
| quitting smoking and gave it to all participants, same
| experience up until quit day. On quit day, "control" group
| got a prescription for nicotine patch; "psilocybin group" got
| a session (and no patch!) -- the psilocybin group in this
| particular study was just one "heroic" dose session on
| smoking quit day, that's it.
|
| Some of the supportive practices or suggestions included:
|
| * just regular sessions, that were in some ways more or less
| like a "therapy" session focused on looking at smoking in
| your life. (whatever that means to you, it really was also
| just a good therapy session!)
|
| * set your quit day near the beginning, several months before
| the quit day. Build up to it.
|
| * at one period, every time you want to smoke, note what you
| feel like and what is precipating it, make a note of it.
| Develop a sense of what things make you want to smoke and
| why, and what role is has in your life.
|
| * A "practice quit" day a month or two (I forget) before
| actual quit day -- just try not to smoke for 24 hours, see
| what it's like, knowing you can smoke again after that. Now
| you know what it's like, and that you got through the worst
| day, and what parts are going to be hardest and can develop
| more strategies for them.
|
| * Get a clear list of the reasons you want to quit. Think
| about em. Write it down, to refer to it when it gets hard.
|
| * Make a list of things you can do _instead_ of smoking,
| after you quit. It doesn 't matter if they are unhealthy
| (junk food or whatever), they're still healthier than
| smoking.
|
| * after quit day, phone number of a therapist you've been
| working with, invitation to call or text if you feel tempted
| and need support and to talk through it. Therapist texted me
| daily checking in, seeing how it's going. (seriously, why
| DON'T we use techniques we associate with alcohol and other
| drug addiction treatment on cigarettes, you know? they are
| crazy addictive!)
|
| There were other things too, additional like little
| cognitive-behavioral (I guess?) games/techniques. I don't
| even remember them all. I should have taken more notes on all
| of it! Just having people there rooting for you and to whom
| you feel kind of accountable to is big.
|
| If their study really does show significantly more success in
| psylocybin group than control group, I find it meaningful
| that even the control group got _really good support_ from
| good counselors. (And I still wouldn 't say it was _easy_ to
| quit!)
| gjs278 wrote:
| how the hell do you have a control group for this? it's
| obvious if you didn't have the drug
| inter_netuser wrote:
| How much nausea did you have from pharmaceutical grade
| psilocybin?
| loceng wrote:
| Awesome, thanks for the lengthy reply. Heroic is usually
| considered at least 5g - there's a saying you can meet God
| at 5g; so it was probably an equivalent dose to that in
| synthetic form.
|
| I am curious myself if there are other diagnostics, health
| metrics that are easily/non-invasively measured to help
| determine or predict what experience a person will have for
| their first experience or to give an idea of how many
| sessions may be necessary for what level of "breakthrough."
|
| Sounds like a good practical list of things to do - to
| develop multiple angles of "attack" to build more weight
| towards the goal, to reference for yourself as support to
| counter the strength/weight of urges.
|
| In part reminds me of "psychological flexibility" practices
| - to help allow thoughts to be less rigid, to offer more
| fluidity to thought - perhaps you already had that open-
| fluid mind and so you simply needed the practice/guidance
| for the practice to then benefit from that value; an
| example is perhaps you normally would tell yourself "I feel
| happy" but then that might trigger a stress or feeling of
| cognitive dissonance, and so instead you'd train yourself
| to acknowledge all aspects of you in that moment and
| instead say "I feel happy AND sad;" perhaps not the best
| example or explaining of similarity. I wonder if the
| researchers first created a survey to determine the level
| of this kind of psychological flexibility a person has, and
| then see how those different groups perform in the
| psilocybin research - if and how the outcome of different
| groups differ; could perhaps divide it up even further by
| providing psychological flexibility training to part of the
| different groups - and see how all the numbers conclude.
|
| Fun fact: the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous actually
| wanted the first step to be everyone do LSD/acid.
| pkaye wrote:
| I presume other countries didn't have a ban on such research so
| there should already be research data from those countries on the
| benefits of psychedelic treatment?
| cyberpsybin wrote:
| US forces countries it trades with to align themselves with its
| drug laws. Just another front in war against drugs.
| dekhn wrote:
| After many years reading about Leary, I realize now that he set
| the field back by decades.
| mysecretaccount wrote:
| Leary was just the fall guy - Nixon sent the field back
| decades. The narrative about Leary's damage to the psychedelic
| movement is massively overstated.
|
| Here is a relevant discussion between Michael Pollan and
| Hamilton Morris about this: https://youtu.be/XvMArmwI10Q?t=2744
| kesslern wrote:
| Michael Pollen talks about this in his book, How To Change Your
| Mind. It's insane how irresponsible Leary was. A good example
| is what's commonly called the Good Friday Experiment.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment
| tayo42 wrote:
| The perspective given in this book was really interesting to
| read. Way different the typical story you get out of drug
| communities
| pvarangot wrote:
| It's hard to blame it on a single person. The Stanford Prison
| Experiment didn't involve any drugs and was as or even more
| irresponsible than Leary's messianic psychedelic mania fueled
| binge. The Stanford Prison Experiment was in 1971, Leary had
| already been indicted of multiple charges by that year if not
| in prison already, according to Wikipedia he was fired from
| Harvard in 1963.
|
| So eight whole years after Learys irresponsibility the
| ethical standards for human experimentation in psychology
| were still nowhere near to what they are today.
| gremloni wrote:
| Intuitively, we learnt a lot about human behavior when we
| were able to do those unethical experiments back in the 60s
| and 70s. Set us back yes, but "set us back" by being moving
| us forward unsustainably.
| dekhn wrote:
| I am not aware of any long-term legitimate findings in
| psychology research from the 60s or 70s (that would not be
| allowed today). Are you? My guess is all, or nearly all,
| have been debunked, or are non-reproducible for silly
| technical reasons.
| gremloni wrote:
| Just off the top of my head, the monkey in the dark
| funnel study, the mit prison experiment, the Stanley
| milgram experiment, the rat utopia/dystopia experiment,
| the little Albert experiment (1919), Leuba's tickling
| experiment involving his son (1930s) etc.
| dekhn wrote:
| All of those studies are basically scientific garbage.
| They're just pop-culture tripe at this point. Each one
| has been invalidated, repeatedly, and for reasons that
| have nothing to do with medical ethics.
|
| Also the prison experiment was at Stanford.
| roddyrockets wrote:
| the Silver Spring monkeys experiment made inroads on
| treatments for stroke patients I believe
| dekhn wrote:
| Thanks, I wasn't able to find that experiment based on
| the previous person's description. That experiment
| doesn't qualify, as we still do experiments more or less
| like that, it's animals not humans, and it's
| neuroscience, not psychiatry.
| gremloni wrote:
| That's not true. At best you can say the Stanley milgram
| experiment was reanalyzed with a poor reproduction
| involving various amounts of money. Not nearly the same
| and definitely not conclusive.
|
| The little Albert study holds, the tickling study
| findings are still true, the Stanford prison experiment
| hasn't been repudiated, the rat experiment has literally
| been reproduced outside of the US and the pit of despair
| findings still hold true.
|
| And yes, it was Stanford but it was off the top, I made a
| mistake.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| The Milgram obedience studies have been replicated many,
| many times.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Most of them didn't really need to be unethical though.
|
| There are things you can learn either extremely slowly or
| extremely unethically, but it didn't really seem to be the
| case with psychedelics. Things which could have been done
| responsibly were done recklessly, and not all that much
| time or effort was saved.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| The last several years, I've noticed there's been a lot of
| effort to debunk and discredit a lot of those unethical
| experiments. I'm still inclined to agree with you though.
| dekhn wrote:
| I'm more concerned about the lack of random sampling:
|
| Leary and Alpert taught a class that was required for
| graduation and colleagues felt they were abusing their power
| by pressuring graduate students to take hallucinogens in the
| experiments. Leary and Alpert also went against policy by
| giving psychedelics to undergraduate students, and did not
| select participants through random sampling. It was also
| problematic that the researchers sometimes took hallucinogens
| along with the subjects they were supposed to be studying
| tenaciousDaniel wrote:
| Agreed. I think Alexander Shulgin deserves some blame as well,
| though maybe not to the same extent.
| dekhn wrote:
| I recall talking to a guy when I was working at Berkeley who
| was convinced that you could take shulgin's work and expand
| it to larger sample sizes and use it as a basis of rational
| drug design for psychedelics. I see Shulgin as a bit of a
| different character, and he was embedded in an time and area
| that had already absorbed LSD and was ready for
| psychonautical adventures.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| I respectfully disagree. What Shulgin did simply represented
| rational science and protocols for self experimentation. He
| established some of the best possible harm reduction
| methodologies, and communicated his knowledge to the world
| through PIKHAL and TIKHAL. Through those books he's saved
| countless lives and minds as people used and shared his
| guidelines.
|
| He was a subtle rebel, who played by the rules and they kept
| changing the rules until they could shackle his research.
|
| The context of the war on drugs and the vastly restrictive IP
| laws created the current culture of drug development and
| research. That culture is dominated by the pseudo capitalism
| and monopolistic death grip Big Pharma has on drugs in
| general, and their development and manufacture in particular.
|
| People absolutely should be allowed to self experiment, and
| knowledge should be freely available. Shulgin and his wife
| showed virtually no I'll effects after a life of responsible
| drug use - he lived to a vigorous 89, and his wife is still
| kicking around at 90! I wish their brand of drug use had
| taken deep root in American culture such that substance use
| was appreciated and respected and approached with the caution
| it deserves. If high school children were given drug use
| education, and pharmacies were a legal source of all drugs
| without the asinine scheduling prohibitions, so many
| tragedies could have been avoided.
|
| Even most doctors don't prescribe drugs as responsibly and
| carefully as they should, and people are ignorant and ill
| prepared for anything that happens. They could use Shulgin's
| approach, carefully increasing dosage and providing patients
| with a common verbal framework with which to describe their
| experience.
|
| Anyway, sorry to rant. Shulgin is a hero to me - a gentle
| rebel who made his PhD count for something he believed in.
| tenaciousDaniel wrote:
| I agree that ultimately, people should be allowed to self
| experiment. But looking at his situation from a pragmatic
| perspective in the 70's and 80's, would it not have been
| wiser to be just a bit more careful with his advocacy?
| Publishing a book that details how to craft hundreds of
| untested psychedelic drugs is not quite what I would call
| subtle.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| It will be interesting to see the results, which may have built-
| in reproduce-ability.
|
| > The study will be conducted simultaneously at the three
| institutions to diversify the pool of participants and increase
| confidence that results apply to a wide range of people who
| smoke.
| [deleted]
| standardUser wrote:
| It's nice to see the cowards and control freaks losing their
| fight to increase human suffering. But wow it has been a long,
| expensive road with uncountable casualties.
| sammalloy wrote:
| Science progresses, one funeral at a time. Most of the
| opposition to psychedelics eventually just died out.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
| Miller59 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I am very impressed with your post.
| https://www.tellthebell.mobi/
| Miller59 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I am very impressed with your post.
|
| https://www.tellthebell.mobi/
| ultra_nick wrote:
| Watch one of these turn out to a miracle cure for some random
| disease.
|
| I can understand preventing access to dangerous drugs for the
| average person, but keeping ourselves deliberately ignorant by
| blocking research was stupid.
| babyshake wrote:
| It's impossible to talk about how dangerous psychedelics are
| without context of the dosage as well as the setting for higher
| doses. We don't consider alcohol to be especially dangerous
| only because it requires a very large amount of most forms of
| alcoholic beverages to result in alcohol poisoning and death.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| You vaguely imply psychedelics are dangerous, comparing them
| to alcohol, yet you provide zero evidence of their dangers.
| Sounds like you need to flesh out your post, it comes across
| anti-psychdelic with no reasoning.
|
| Especially odd because we DO consider alcohol dangerous, why
| else is there a 21 age minimum on it, why else is drunk
| driving a scourge and menace? The "danger of psychedelics"
| looks meek by comparison.
| nipponese wrote:
| Like anything else, doesn't that depend on the concentration?
| colechristensen wrote:
| Psychedelics have other dangers than acute toxicity. Not
| that I'm giving medical advice but it is extraordinarily
| difficult to die as a result of an overdose of most pure
| psychedelics which aren't strange "research chemicals".
| (Although I vaguely remember reading about a guy who
| accidentally took something like tens of thousands of
| effective doses of LSD being in a coma for quite a while)
|
| However their power is in their ability to reshape your
| mind... and that they can do in very undesirable ways if
| done wrong.
| pvarangot wrote:
| > and that they can do in very undesirable ways if done
| wrong.
|
| I think the risk of developing a long term mental illness
| from psychedelic use are overstated because of societies
| stigma with temporary psychosis. A healthy person can
| come back from those "psychotomimetic" episodes really
| quickly, even quicker than with opioid induced psychosis.
| It's not really mysterious or undesirable as you make it
| sound. People that develop long term issues from
| psychedelic use are also at risk of developing those from
| basically all other psychoactive substances, specially
| marihuana and opioids.
|
| The motivations for making psychedelics schedule 1 where
| political and not related to that risk at all though.
| Drinking a lot can also create temporary psychosis and
| long term personality changes. There's also lots of
| studies about how marihuana also results in psychosis or
| triggers mania in some people. Neither alcohol nor
| Marihuana show as promising results for things like
| fighting depression, fatigue, social anxiety, as
| psychedelics or at fighting PTSD as MDMA does.
|
| Alcohol and now weed are legal mostly because of other
| economic and political interests. The sad reality is no
| one gives a fuck about the people that could benefit from
| research into psychedelic medicine, except pharmaceutical
| companies that make billions out of treatments that are
| 20 years behind, and they want them to be schedule 1
| forever.
| colechristensen wrote:
| With drugs you get two choices: ineffective or
| potentially dangerous, often both.
|
| People want to believe that the thing they like is safe,
| but every drug that can do anything is dangerous. That's
| the whole idea, a drug is a lever to make change, not a
| magical "make everything better" solution. You push the
| lever too far and you get things you don't want.
|
| It's not just temporary psychosis (which sometimes isn't
| so temporary). It can trigger major changes in
| personality, or latent mental illnesses which tend to
| only manifest with a push (schizophrenia is one).
|
| It's not a coincidence that psychedelics have been used
| in religious ceremonies throughout human history. They
| can give people religion, and without direction they can
| turn people into troubling zealots for just about
| anything (and often the drug itself). People who
| experienced this and became cultural icons are part of
| the reason they got banned. (turn on, tune in, drop out)
|
| There is even a considerable group that want to re-name
| psychedelics to "entheogens" which has a rough etymology
| of "to put god into".
|
| I have personally felt this and it scared the fuck out of
| me.
| totesraunch wrote:
| Every single thing humans do and consume is 'potentially
| dangerous'. Existence is dangerous.
| colechristensen wrote:
| If you extend the definition of the word or phrase to
| apply to everything it is meaningless and might as well
| not be used. That is not how I am using it.
| stadium wrote:
| > With drugs you get two choices: ineffective or
| potentially dangerous, often both.
|
| What type of drugs? Pharmaceutical or recreational?
| Natural or man-made? Taken to escape or numb, or with
| respect and gratitude? Abused or moderated?
|
| There is a wide spectrum of outcomes when consuming any
| substance. Many more than two.
|
| > They can give people religion, and without direction
| they can turn people into troubling zealots for just
| about anything (and often the drug itself)
|
| Religion, politics, or any belief system can breed this
| without drugs. Selling salvation or enlightenment by
| taking a substance attracts the emotionally vulnerable.
| And wouldn't that actually decrease if they could be
| taken by anyone in a safe and controlled environment
| alongside a licenced therapist, instead of underground?
|
| What are you advocating for or against? I'm genuinely
| interested, I sense fear and worry in what you wrote but
| don't really understand the point you are trying to make.
| colechristensen wrote:
| >What type of drugs?
|
| All.
|
| My point seems to have not gotten across.
|
| Let me restate. Either a "drug" is fake and worthless, or
| it is dangerous. There isn't a third direction. If it
| does anything, it can do too much of it.
|
| >Religion, politics, or any belief system can breed this
| without drugs.
|
| Hallucinogens are major religious experiences in pill
| form with proper dosage (or whatever your preferred
| delivery method). There isn't really a comparison between
| something that can readily deliver a life changing
| experience on demand and those other things.
|
| >What are you advocating for or against? I'm genuinely
| interested, I sense fear and worry in what you wrote but
| don't really understand the point you are trying to make.
|
| I'm advocating against treating this class of drugs like
| they are magical perfect safe toys. They are powerful,
| and dangerous tools that can do a lot of good things, but
| any powerful tool can be misused or have serious
| drawbacks. I am not against "dangerous" things, there's
| no such thing as complete safety. I'm advocating for
| respect and understanding. There is a reason historically
| and prehistorically they were almost always used within a
| structured (usually religious) environment.
| stadium wrote:
| There is space for respect and understanding in between
| fake & worthless and dangerous. These are
| multidimensional problems.
|
| The titled study seems very thoughtfully designed and
| operated, in a professional, ethical, and scientific
| manner.
|
| I'm with you on the last point. It's good to be aware of
| past abuses, but I also see a future where we can
| integrate what nature has provided into our lives in a
| respectful and grateful way and grow from it. Definitely
| not a pill to pop and fix something. A therapy based
| approach to psychedelics makes a ton of sense to me.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Besides the "it's not that binary" thing that other
| people already told you, and that I agree with, there's a
| few other misconceptions I think:
|
| > It's not a coincidence that psychedelics have been used
| in religious ceremonies throughout human history.
|
| I don't think the reason is that they are good
| "brainwashing" drugs and religion is inherently about
| changing everyone's personality. I think what you are
| referring to as "religion" was not "religion" back then,
| but "religion, science, medicine and the state" which
| where all usually together and perceived as a single
| entity. The main reason they were using psychedelics may
| be that they are very effective, cheap, easy to extract
| from plants, and that they at a large scale work in
| addressing a lot of maladies. What was tuned for
| "brainwashing" and "controlling people" where the
| ceremonies, the drugs don't "do that" on their own.
|
| The CIA conducted a lot of research into using LSD for
| brainwashing. So did Mossad, to use them for kidnapping
| people but making it seem like they are willingly going
| with them. They are not effective for this. Most of the
| literature agrees that high doses are more likely to help
| with depression and anxiety than to have any bad
| consequences.
|
| And yeah they make you easier to manipulate and more
| suggestible. So do benzodiazepines and alcohol but with
| no of the benefits. You just need to be a little bit
| careful when taking them if you are struggling with any
| mental issue. Just like everything else.
|
| > I have personally felt this and it scared the fuck out
| of me.
|
| Do you have any experience administering psychedelics or
| with the vast literature about administering
| psychedelics? Because yeah, research has been banned in
| the US for a while, but this things have been around
| since the 50s. There's a lot of published research and a
| lot of literature from community use.
|
| I think you may just be projecting your own experience
| here.
| CryoLogic wrote:
| The active dose to LD50 ratio for alcohol is somewhere about
| 1:13 depending on tolerance. For Magic Mushrooms or LSD, it
| is above 1:1000.
|
| In other words, it is nearly impossible to accidentally kill
| yourself via overdose on psychedelics - but somewhat easy
| with alcohol.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose
| agumonkey wrote:
| You don't need to somatically die. If you end up mentally
| borked that is enough.
| bagacrap wrote:
| I think you have to balance that against the fact that the
| recreational dose of lsd is so infinitesimal that 10000x
| that dose is still very easy to ingest in the blink of an
| eye. Not so for alcohol.
|
| That said, even after reading wikipedia's source on the
| ld50 of lsd, I remain unconvinced that there even is a
| lethal dose of LSD.
| nitrogen wrote:
| There are other forms of danger apart from lethality, and
| before new recreational (or therapeutic) drugs can be
| accepted by society, those need to be culturally
| understood.
| [deleted]
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| An excerpt from the highest ever recorded dosage of LSD.
|
| "Eight individuals who accidentally consumed a very high
| dose of LSD intranasally (mistaking it for cocaine) had
| plasma levels of 1000-7000 mg per 100mL blood plasma and
| suffered from comatose states, hyperthermia, vomiting,
| light gastric bleeding, and respiratory problems.
| However, all survived with hospital treatment and without
| residual effects."
|
| https://maps.org/research-
| archive/w3pb/2008/2008_Passie_2306...
|
| In short, even on the rare occasion when people have
| taken 1000x what they should, they didn't die.
| sharkweek wrote:
| But it sure is a hell of a lot easier THINKING you're going
| to die while on psychedelics!
|
| I can't handle drugs (as much as I'm curious about them)
| but I had a "smoked waaaay too much pot"experience in
| college where I was high for almost 24 hours and I spent
| the first six hours or so convinced I had broken my brain
| and was going to die.
| [deleted]
| antonzabirko wrote:
| It's dumb that this site is designed in a way where I can't
| downvote this comment.
| eminence32 wrote:
| This is an off-topic comment, but in the title it seems the word
| "for" was replaced by the letter "4" -- is this a common
| substitution for NH titles? Was it done because of length
| constraints?
| colechristensen wrote:
| You could also change "receives" to "gets" and eliminate the
| word "treatment" to remove all need for awkward shortening.
| napsterbr wrote:
| > Was it done because of length constraints?
|
| Yep, most likely. The title has exactly 80 characters, which is
| the limit. "Years" was also abbreviated.
| drannex wrote:
| Personal opinion, but I think it's time that HN increases the
| character limit, we are seeing more and more of these sort of
| things.
| kazinator wrote:
| It's a tricky business. In terms of raw screen width, we
| have it. Or do we? Not necessarily on mobile, in portrait
| orientation.
|
| From a readability/usability perspective, imagine the HN
| front page being filled top to bottom with titles, some of
| which go to 150 characters; what would that be like?
|
| (A mock-up could be easily obtained for evaluation; or HN
| could just experiment with it for a few days.)
|
| Currently, most titles don't strain the existing limit.
| When we scan the front page now, for instance, there are
| good many short and medium length titles.
|
| A modest increase, say by +20 characters, might relieve
| most of the pressure without too many negative effects.
| Which is to say that maybe the current limit is a bit to
| the left of the true "sweet spot".
| tux3 wrote:
| I think I'd be happy with longer titles, since that's an
| artificial limitation separate from how we vote and judge
| submissions.
|
| If posts have unnecessarily long titles enough to bother,
| they'll be systematically downvoted a little more and
| fall out of practice.
|
| If the system wanted to put a hard limit on wordiness, it
| should have a good reason why!
|
| We're all wasting a little time on inefficiencies
| otherwise.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| I heard it prevents Covid. Many people are saying this. The best
| people.
| jugg1es wrote:
| My dad is a professor of psychiatry at JHU medical school and has
| been telling me about this psilocybin study for years. He was
| always pretty strict about me doing drugs growing up, but now
| he's excited about the amazing results they're seeing in this
| study. He's even been asking me about my own hallucinogen
| experiences that I had growing up. The world is truly changing.
| tayo42 wrote:
| My parents were real strict about drugs growing up too. Even in
| my late 20s I would dodge the question about drugs. Idk what
| changed in the last couple years. They both have gotten more
| open about it. More so my dad, whos now growing mushrooms and
| microdosing, and gave dmt and mdma a try. I showed him how to
| do dabs and hit a bong correctly lol. He cant get around the
| idea snorting something so no ketamine yet and is having
| trouble finding time for acid. I think Michael Pollans book
| helped a bit. Its crazy to see though.
|
| I used to be pretty shy about my drug use, but i try talking
| about it more if it comes up. I like to think it helps get rid
| of the stigma.
| klondike_klive wrote:
| >They both have gotten more open about it. More so my dad,
| whos now growing mushrooms and microdosing, and gave dmt and
| mdma a try. I showed him how to do dabs and hit a bong
| correctly lol.
|
| Wow. That sentence escalated quickly! (Actually if DMT
| reports are anything to go by, the sentence peaked there...)
| robbedpeter wrote:
| I'm happy for you and your dad, and for our country - we need
| little victories, and this a big one for everyone. The science
| part has to be uniquely thrilling, though. Your dad's in a
| wonderful place in space and history.
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