[HN Gopher] The hyped and distorted claims of psychedelic marketing
___________________________________________________________________
The hyped and distorted claims of psychedelic marketing
Author : pmoriarty
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-05-07 11:38 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.psymposia.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.psymposia.com)
| eldenwrong wrote:
| Terrible article gasping at straws
| [deleted]
| throw93232 wrote:
| There is easy way to "disprove" it in any argument:
|
| If drugs solve depression and improve mental state, suggest
| goverment should finance and distribute drugs to homeless people.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Well, given that all the homeless are already in drugs in the
| PNW, it looks like we know the results of this experiment
| already!
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Even the most cursory examination of the topic would reveal to
| you that psychedelic drugs are (allegedly) beneficial when
| taken in a controlled manner, in safe environments - not
| exactly in line with the homelessness experience.
|
| Your statement is even less accurate, somehow, than saying
| "well if chemotherapy really works then why don't we just hand
| out random chemotherapy drugs to homeless people."
|
| I won't bother quoting any studies, because they wildly
| contradict one another, but the conventional wisdom is that
| _some_ drugs can be beneficial in _some_ circumstances. And
| often the benefit is harm reduction, ie managing pain with
| cannabis rather than opioids.
| throw93232 wrote:
| I agree with you. But drugs and "microdosing" are marketed as
| holy grail that heals anything. My statement above is very
| easy way to disprove it.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| This is nothing more than a "Rules for thee and not for me"
| attitude towards the poor. Homeless and doing drugs? OK, you
| are an addict, you have to get help, you have to get cleaned
| up, you're ruining your life, etc. Nothing more than a
| parasite on society.
|
| Wealthy and able to have a "doctor" prescribe you drugs? OK
| it's fine. You aren't one of those dirty "addicts" because a
| guy with two letters in front of his name says it OK.
| throwamon wrote:
| The issue with psychedelics has nothing to do with
| addiction. Google "psychedelics set and setting" and
| "psychedelics psychosis risk factors" for a start.
| hey2022 wrote:
| Replace drugs with surgery in this train of thought and you
| will notice that it does in fact make sense.
|
| This is not a war on the poor, psychedelic medicine
| requires care when administered.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| The US government literally calls it the "War on Drugs".
| Given that it is notoriously difficult to maim, jail, or
| prosecute a chemical we can be assured it is actually a
| war on people. Having been through the system once
| myself, I can assure you that it is incredibly oppressive
| to poor people who cannot afford legal representation.
|
| I'm all for someone deciding they need drugs to function.
| It doesn't matter to me how you live your life. If you do
| it with a doctor, fine. If you want to figure it out on
| your own because you don't have access to medical care,
| that does not make that person a criminal.
|
| There are plenty of people self medicating with nicotine
| & alcohol every day, no one says it is necessary to lock
| them up. The only difference I see is it is a handy
| source of tax revenue and somehow "socially acceptable".
| unethical_ban wrote:
| The person you're arguing with was simply saying
| "throwing psychedelics at the car window at homeless
| people won't make them better". They didn't say "lock up
| the homeless for using mushrooms", he didn't say
| "homeless people don't deserve treatment".
|
| They were calling out the simplistic nature of the OP
| comment, and asserting that proper use of psychedelics
| for medical treatment involves a safe, controlled
| environment.
|
| Nothing they said or were asserting had to do with US
| drug policy.
| achenet wrote:
| Thank you for further explaining your point of view.
|
| I think also that the US's healthcare is partially to
| blame - if you had universal healthcare, then poor people
| would also (in theory) have equal access to drug
| prescriptions.
|
| I do think that, generally speaking, many drugs are best
| done under medical supervision. I have a friend of my
| brothers who died of a heroin overdose, her first time
| trying the drug. I tell myself that if we lived in a
| world where foolish college kids have to go to a pharmacy
| and get their hits administered by a registered
| pharmacist, maybe she'd still be alive.
|
| I also generally agree that the War on Drugs is bullshit.
| It didn't work for alcohol during prohibition, and it's
| not working now. The smart move is legalize, tax and
| regulate.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Feels like you are intentionally misreading the comment
| you're responding to. Plenty of wealthy people have self-
| doses drugs and destroyed their lives, their bodies. You
| really don't see how medically supervised drug use could be
| beneficial while the self-dosed, unsupervised drug use
| could be explicitly destructive?
| fullstick wrote:
| Maybe the government should finance and distribute drugs to
| homeless people. Some people are homeless because they can't
| afford their prescriptions (drugs).
| panqueque wrote:
| "We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed
| that fueled the 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's
| trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion"
| without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities
| that were lying in wait for all the people who took him
| seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought
| they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But
| their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him
| was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped
| create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who
| never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid
| Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least
| some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel."
|
| - Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
| [deleted]
| sysadm1n wrote:
| I wish he could've elaborated about this piece of writing. Does
| he mean all the people who took acid in the 60s are all
| burnouts? If one out of every ten people who dropped acid had
| an enriching experience and the rest got severe mental illness
| does that mean the acid movement failed?
|
| As for the 'old-mystic fallacy' of acid, there are people who
| actually got enlightened from the stuff without having to spend
| ten years meditating in a monastery. As McKenna said: 'but the
| ferry costs a nickel'
| the_only_law wrote:
| > Does he mean all the people who took acid in the 60s are
| all burnouts?
|
| Aren't most of the people running the country of this
| generation? If that's burn out I suppose I can live with it.
| goldenkey wrote:
| What most people fail to realize is that nature isn't humanoid
| in any capacity. I've lived long enough and seen enough
| synchronicities to know that reality is far more entangled than
| a cause and effect standpoint would have you believe. But
| nature being quite tightly coupled instead of locally isolated,
| doesn't mean nature has a humanoid intent. It just means that
| everything is connected. If the universe is a spider web, it
| doesn't do us any favors to assume we are being taken care of
| by some benevolent spider.
|
| This video is the world we live in. It's difficult to watch a
| komodo dragon eat a pregnant deer. But I challenge you to watch
| this, because this is what reality actually is:
| https://youtu.be/oHJuzE0k1V8
|
| Reality is intimately connected through time and space. Reality
| is beautiful, dark, ruthless, dreary but it is not kind.
|
| Living as if nature is kind does not end well.
| CPLX wrote:
| Indeed. The scariest concept in the world isn't someone that
| hates you and wants you dead. It's something that views you
| as protein.
| scollet wrote:
| Easily top two worst nightmares is being in the presence of
| a large cat or bear and the thing is looking at me.
|
| It's horrifying.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Nice video to show people who are tripping but I prefer
| YouTube links to wooks giving live birth in rivers
|
| Really connects people
| emptysongglass wrote:
| What is a wook?
| throwamon wrote:
| > I've lived long enough and seen enough synchronicities to
| know that reality is far more entangled than a cause and
| effect standpoint would have you believe.
|
| I've no idea what you mean by that.
|
| > This video is the world we live in.
|
| Reality _includes_ komodo dragons, just as it does kindness.
| You say nature isn 't "humanoid" and then ascribe to it
| qualities like ruthlessness. You're just as biased and
| delusional as whoever you're criticizing.
| goldenkey wrote:
| > I have no idea what you mean by that.
|
| A brief read about Jung's concept of synchronicity might
| clear that up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect
|
| > You say nature isn't "humanoid" and then ascribe to it
| qualities like ruthlessness.
|
| Definition of kind: "having or showing a friendly,
| generous, and considerate nature."
|
| One can argue that non-humanoid processes or things are
| kind without violating basic precepts. For instance, a
| crane machine at an arcade might be viewed as kind or
| forgiving if its claws don't drop items so easily. Or the
| machine might be viewed as ruthless if its claws drop items
| all the time.
|
| > You're just as biased and delusional as whoever you're
| criticizing.
|
| Fucking rude, dude. My post wasn't criticism - it was an
| explanation..
| thucydides wrote:
| I'm curious what kind of synchronicities you are referring to
| mjthrowaway1 wrote:
| And yet we have kindness in nature as well.
| elevaet wrote:
| I know a lot more people whose lives have been deeply enriched
| by acid, than those who've ended up on the ends of those
| proverbial meat hooks.
|
| That being said, casualties are real and can happen, it's great
| work that Psymposia is doing shining a light on the
| uncomfortable dark corners of psychedelic enthusiasm.
| Especially when it comes to corporate interests and influence
| in the space.
|
| I hope that this time around, we can keep psychedelics in their
| right place as valuable tools for humanity. Not elevated to
| culty worship, nor demonized.
|
| And that they stay at least a little bit wild.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I see it as at least partly an overcorrection of the past. I
| still can't search something as benign as Kava without websites
| swearing to me it's more dangerous than hard drugs and telling me
| I should to pay for their addiction treatment for a non addictive
| substance.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Unfortunate hype cycle. Ironic indeed given that opening the
| doors of perception is supposed to give one a cosmic perspective,
| a gaia hypothesis model of the world. And this is in every way
| self-serving. Best thing is just to show the trip live, like an
| ayahuasca diary reality show demonstrating marked behavioral
| progress over 6-9 months or so ;)
| leetrout wrote:
| I think some of this is covered by Vice's show "Hamilton's
| Pharmacopeia".
|
| Not as you described with lasting effects on someone but
| certainly showing the acute effects and exploring various
| drugs.
| blastro wrote:
| great idea
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The USA has a rather distorted health care and medicine system,
| in that it's viewed here as a profit center, not as a basic
| societal necessity. In contrast, police and judicial services are
| not really viewed as an investment opportunity (let's skip
| private prisons), just a basic necessity.
|
| Where this comes out in the 'psychedelic treatment' movement is
| that it's not going to be very profitable, and in fact - if it
| works as advertised - will mean a lot of people will end up
| spending much less on anti-depressants on one hand, and alcohol
| and opiates and cannabis on the other.
|
| This is because psychedelics - administered not as daily
| microdosing, but rather as infrequent full-dose experiences,
| ideally under somewhat controlled conditions - show promise in
| providing treatments for depression and addiction that don't
| require further daily interventions. The effects of a single dose
| can last for weeks to months.
|
| From the business end of the health care system, this is a fiscal
| disaster. Someone spending $50 a day on alcohol, or cannabis, or
| opiates, or antidepressants and therapy, now spends $50 every few
| months on a bag of psychedelic mushrooms, with a more postive
| long-term outcome r.e. depression and addiction.
|
| One conclusion is that a society that views health care as a
| profit opportunity, rather than a basic necessity, has some
| serious value problems that end up encouraging unhealthy
| behavior, i.e. pushing junk food in schools, encouraging obesity
| and depression and addiction, which then generate further profits
| for hospitals and pharmaceutical producers.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I always feel like people who make this sort of argument around
| health care in the US (that the health industry doesn't want
| cheap cures because it will reduce their profit from expensive
| treatments) are forgetting one of the major players in this...
| the insurance companies.
|
| Health insurance companies love cheap cures, because that means
| lower costs and more profit for them. They have every incentive
| to promote cheap cures, and are a huge industry that spends a
| ton of money on lobbying.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >Health insurance companies love cheap cures, because that
| means lower costs and more profit for them.
|
| If things are easy and cheap to cure do you really need
| insurance against them?
| msla wrote:
| If you can come up with a miracle drug sovereign against a
| catastrophic car crash, we're all ears.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I said: If things are easy and cheap to cure do you
| really need insurance against them?
|
| evidently you think catastrophic car crashes are
| something that are easy and cheap to cure? If so, it is I
| that am all ears.
|
| on edit: changed is all ears to am all ears, while the
| former is, I believe, grammatically correct, it is the
| latter in idiomatic usage.
| msla wrote:
| I'm saying that, even if somehow all "illness" were cheap
| and easy to cure[1], we'd still need health insurance for
| injury, especially sudden and catastrophic injury, such
| as car accidents.
|
| [1] And defining "illness" as distinct from "injury"
| isn't all that easy.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| and I'm saying that I obviously never said otherwise.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Health insurance companies love collecting insurance money
| and not paying out. Denying coverage, not covering
| procedures, not covering full treatments, not covering the
| full staff needed for a procedure, covering suboptimal but
| cheap treatments are some of the other tools in their
| toolset.
|
| Let's not pretend that installing one more extraction point
| accountable only to shareholders between patients and their
| care is somehow driving progress.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| What's the alternative?
| Centigonal wrote:
| Single payer?
|
| Medicaid as an option for everybody?
|
| A public insurance option?
|
| Cost transparency or anti-trust regulation that helps
| further commodify health insurance and drive down costs?
|
| Stealing ideas from the several dozen other countries
| that have solved the point-of-care cost problem?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I'm all for these suggestions, but they don't address any
| of the problems listed in the post I was replying to:
|
| _" Health insurance companies love collecting insurance
| money and not paying out. Denying coverage, not covering
| procedures, not covering full treatments, not covering
| the full staff needed for a procedure, covering
| suboptimal but cheap treatments are some of the other
| tools in their toolset."_
|
| Exactly the same problems can and do occur with single-
| payer, medicaid, etc...
| lou1306 wrote:
| At least two alternatives:
|
| * The state maintains a public, affordable health
| insurance service
|
| * The state directly funds a public network of doctors
| and hospitals
| pmoriarty wrote:
| The search for quick cures (both by insurance companies and
| time/money-limited patients) is one of the major reasons that
| relatively short-acting psychedelics like MDMA, psilocybin
| and ketamine are popular.
|
| The even faster acting psychedelics like DMT (NN-DMT) and
| 5-MeO-DMT are also likely to become popular for the same
| reason.
|
| Their use may eventually eclipse more traditional and slower
| acting psychedelics, because what could be more convenient
| than tripping for 15 minutes, being "cured" of your
| depression, and then going on with the rest of your day?
| sprayk wrote:
| > The USA has a rather distorted health care and medicine
| system, in that it's viewed here as a profit center, not as a
| basic societal necessity. In contrast, police and judicial
| services are not really viewed as an investment opportunity
| (let's skip private prisons), just a basic necessity.
|
| The profit center vs societal necessity way of looking at these
| things is super interesting and definitely new to me (at least
| in such a concise form). In this framing, I'm not sure I want
| healthcare to move, since everything I can think of on the
| societal necessity side of the spectrum is slow moving and
| underfunded. Police departments tend to be underfunded and slow
| to adopt new technology (though maybe that's a feature), while
| hospital facilities and medical treatments seem to advance
| quickly to adapt to new discoveries/tech despite insane FDA
| regulations as a barrier.
|
| If we flipped a switch and made law enforcement a profit
| center, what would that look like? I'll go first, but I
| sincerely want to hear your take, as I'm sure I'm missing
| something. I assume they still have to enforce
| local/state/federal laws, but they will somehow be subject to
| the same tug of war over tech/efficiency advances and
| regulations around safety/civil rights. I hope we pay them
| directly/willingly, rather than them simply making bank on
| speeding/redlight cameras or parking tickets. Maybe we have to
| pay some kind of crime insurance, where rates (i.e. risk)
| changes depending on crime stats in the area defined by the
| insurance companies, which could incentivize the police to
| meaningfully reduce crime. Insurance would pay out when crimes
| are solved, and any attempts to fudge the numbers by the police
| would be insurance fraud. Sounds wild.
| ajb wrote:
| Private policing was indeed Wild:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Wild
| scrollbar wrote:
| We're at the point in the cycle where dollars donated to
| Psymposia will get better ROI than dollars to MAPS. Psychedelics
| aren't going away at this point. Powerful tools must be handled
| with care, lest they cause more harm than good.
|
| Psymposia patreon https://www.patreon.com/psymposia
|
| Donate https://www.psymposia.com/donate/
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" We're at the point in the cycle where dollars donated to
| Psymposia will get better ROI than dollars to MAPS."_
|
| I don't know about that.
|
| - Not even a single psychedelic has been taken off Schedlue 1
| (the most prohibited category) in the US.
|
| - Only MDMA therapy has reached Phase 3 trials and is ready for
| mainstream adoption.
|
| - Despite all the research done on psychedelics, our
| understanding of how and why they work, and of their potential
| is still in its infancy.
|
| - It's still difficult to do large double-blind, placebo
| controlled studies with psychedelics due to funding shortages.
|
| - Most people still don't know much about psychedelics and have
| never tried them.
|
| Psymposia does good work in exposing scandals, but doesn't do
| anything to address any of the above issues.
|
| MAPS still has a long, long way to go and is every bit as
| deserving of funding as it ever was.
| scrollbar wrote:
| At this point it seems like Psymposia's MO is that MAPS _is_
| the scandal, and is generating bad science. Not sure I 100%
| agree but I think it's a point worth considering.
| gkop wrote:
| This is why I decline to invest in psychedelic angel funds.
| Hopefully if the government steps back, shrooms will sell
| themselves (safely).
| the_only_law wrote:
| I'm wondering if increased visibility into DXM is going to get
| it RX only'd. I read somewhere that the only reason it is OTC
| is because the best alternative was Codeine, not sure if it's
| true.
| anm89 wrote:
| What problem, are these companies solving again?
|
| Go buy a legal spore syringe and you can grow more mushrooms than
| you could eat in a decade for $100 with the uncle Ben tek or the
| poor boy tek or whatever.
|
| You don't need to pay big pharma 1000x price by weight for the
| same stuff
| the_only_law wrote:
| > What problem, are these companies solving again?
|
| If I had to guess visibility. I may be wrong but at the very
| least it seems research is being done intro drugs that haven't
| had the most or best research done. I one time gave my self a
| serotonin syndrome scare and was concerned by the lack of
| quality research and information on the serotonergic affects of
| many drugs.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| It takes more than a syringe to grow mushrooms.
|
| It takes equipment, time, effort, and knowledge -- things most
| people don't have and don't want.
|
| This is the same reason most cannabis users don't grow their
| own supply, though it's supposedly "easy". Also the same reason
| most people go to grocery stores instead of growing their own
| food, and go to liquor stores instead of brewing their own
| beer.
|
| Most people want to offload the growing to others, and prefer
| the ease and convenience of buying premade and prepackaged
| goods. The huge variety of preparations and (in an ideal world)
| quality of commercial products is unlikely to be equaled by
| amateurs who dabble in growing on the weekend either. Also,
| advertising and packaging is going to draw people to commercial
| products.
|
| They might not technically "need" these, and maybe with enough
| time and effort the average person might be able to grow their
| own, but most certainly don't want that. They want a quick and
| convenient, commercially made and packaged product.
| achenet wrote:
| Their founders lack of a third vacation home. :p
|
| There are a relatively large number of companies that aren't
| really "solving a problem" but still making bank.
|
| For example, what problem is Instagram solving? Giving
| advertisers an even easier way to target insecure teenage
| girls?
| ipsin wrote:
| I'm worried that we're going to split into a two-tiered system
| where people with money can go to clinics for recreational or
| therapeutic treatments, and people who don't want to spend that
| money can go to jail.
|
| That's already the situation for ketamine clinics.
| goldenkey wrote:
| Indeed. Special K is a great breakfast. Kelloggs never locked
| anyone up :-)
| monkeybutton wrote:
| It's always been like that, from Dr. Roberts in New York to
| people flying to South America and paying for ayahuasca trips.
|
| Edit for reference: http://www.beatlesebooks.com/dr-robert
|
| >Dr. Robert Freymann, whose discreet East 78th Street clinic
| was conveniently located for Jackie Kennedy and other wealthy
| Upper East Siders from Fifth Avenue and Park to stroll over for
| their vitamin B-12 shots, which also happened to contain a
| massive dose of amphetamine.
| [deleted]
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Not directly related to the article. But I'm just glad we as a
| society have come back around to psychedelic's.
|
| It was clear in the 1960's that these drugs have massive
| potential to help treat mental illness, but we all know what
| Nixon did. I was watching a documentary about it the other day
| and it just made me sad, imagine where we would be today with
| mental health treatment had Nixon not made these drugs illegal.
|
| It seems that we as a society are starting to overcome the sins
| of the past. The problems mentioned in this article are real
| problems, but I almost look at it as a "good problem". If we're
| at the point with Psychedelics where our biggest issue is how the
| capitalists market it, I think we're doing alright.
| goldenkey wrote:
| They can just as easily cause mental illness. Marijuana can
| cause psychosis [1] but the cannabis lobby pretty much won and
| there's nothing on the packaging indicating this risk. Cannabis
| is involved in approximately 50% of psychosis, schizophrenia,
| and schizophreniform psychosis cases. Thats significant,
| wouldn't you say?
|
| In the same vein, DMT raped my brain and I felt like a fucking
| husk for two years after breaking through.
|
| These things are oversold. We should legalize them, but lets
| not kid ourselves about how potent and powerful these
| substances are.
| jotm wrote:
| Cannabis is... overrated. It is rather similar to alcohol in
| that it helps a bit, but with prolonged use or regular abuse
| the downsides quickly overtake the benefits.
|
| It was a bit useful for me for a while, but there are better
| alternatives out there. And choosing a good strain is nigh
| impossible these days unless you grow it yourself - the high
| THC low CBD stuff preferred by sellers even in regions where
| it's legal is only good for fun/recreational use, not helping
| with depression, anxiety or pain.
| goldenkey wrote:
| Let's adjust the statement a bit. It's overrated. Still
| phenomenal compared to alcohol -- which is one of the
| weakest drugs per unit mass or volume. Literally only 2% of
| blood ethanol gets to the brain, so most of what folks
| drink is actually performing organ damage, not CNS effects.
|
| Like you said, Cannabis is a wildly diverse plant.
| Cannabinoids like CBG, CBC, and CBDV are extraordinary
| anti-inflammatory and anti-neoplastic agents.
|
| 100% agree with you and the literature does too. Daily use
| of high THC / low CBD cannabis is the main driver of the
| temporary psychosis we are seeing across cities that have
| legalized marijuana.
|
| Studies show that CBD is actually antipsychotic whereas THC
| is the opposite, so we have essentially bred the plant into
| a tripping device versus what it used to be, a more
| cerebral relaxing experience.
| asguy wrote:
| > Let's adjust the statement a bit. It's overrated. Still
| phenomenal compared to alcohol -- which is one of the
| weakest drugs per unit mass or volume. Literally only 2%
| of blood ethanol gets to the brain, so most of what folks
| drink is actually performing organ damage, not CNS
| effects.
|
| Most people don't consume alcohol because of its
| efficiency. If they did, they'd be doing everclear shots
| or boofing it. They wouldn't be mixing cocktails, aging
| whisky for decades, or pairing wines with food.
|
| Weed as a drug isn't "phenomenal" compared to alcohol,
| unless you ignore most of the reasons people drink.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > It's overrated. Still phenomenal compared to alcohol
|
| Most things that don't leave me with a splitting headache
| and day long nausea are great compared to alcohol.
| the_only_law wrote:
| For a marijuana risk I've not seen mentioned often:
|
| I fainted in my hallway while going to bed thanks to
| orthostatic hypotension which is made significantly
| stronger when I smoke.
|
| I still don't consider it worse than alcohol though. It's
| well known to be neurotoxic, hepatoxic, and addictive. And
| if you do get addicted, the withdrawals are worse than many
| hard drugs. The positive effects are generally pretty nice,
| but almost invalidated by the next morning.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| " Cannabis is involved in approximately 50% of psychosis,
| schizophrenia, and schizophreniform psychosis cases. Thats
| significant, wouldn't you say?"
|
| Maybe, maybe not. Nicotine was (is?) a very common self-
| medication for schizophrenia. So much so that it became a
| trope in movies, etc (e.g. "Clean, Shaven"). If a majority of
| people with schizophrenia smoked cigarettes, would we argue
| that nicotine is implicated in the development of that
| condition?
|
| My instinct is certainly that you're right, but the direction
| of causality could simply be backwards too.
| goldenkey wrote:
| Thank you for highlighting the issue of correlation vs
| causality vs backwards causality.
|
| Nicotine is an antipsychotic, so psychosis generally leads
| to nicotine use as it's much more user-friendly than
| prescription antipsychotics.
|
| About the movie tropes, nicotine is an acetylcholinergic
| agent similar to caffeine. These agents act as nootropic
| stimulants hence the movie tropes. Both natural and
| synthetic insecticides have been known to poison people due
| to their potent acetylcholinergic activity. [1]
|
| THC is a different beast. It's well accepted that THC is
| psychedelic enough to bring out latent schizophrenia. What
| most folks don't know about is the temporary psychosis it
| can cause.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organophosphate_poisoning
| curun1r wrote:
| > Cannabis is involved in approximately 50% of psychosis,
| schizophrenia, and schizophreniform psychosis cases. Thats
| significant, wouldn't you say?
|
| Absolutely not. Alcohol is involved in 60% of the snake bites
| in the US. It's easy to see the causal link. But that isn't a
| reason to avoid alcohol or that alcohol puts you at a
| significant risk of being bitten by a snake. And that's
| because alcohol consumption is common and snake bites are
| rare. Similarly, cannabis consumption is common and the
| conditions you list are rare. Even if there is a causal link
| there, and that's a big if, that's not a reason to avoid
| cannabis. There's no reason to assume or even worry about
| being in the sub-1% group.
| goldenkey wrote:
| It's not rare at all. Every practicing psychiatrist I've
| talked to that works part-time at mental hospitals, have
| told me they see cannabis related temporary psychosis on
| the regular. The studies show it to be common. Anecdotes
| show it to be common. And yet, it's not common - what
| gives?
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30902669/
| curun1r wrote:
| Studies absolutely don't show it to be common. Here's a
| meta analysis [0] of many that, as I mentioned, shows it
| below 1% of the population. That's rare. Don't confuse it
| being easy to find with it being common. Whenever you
| have a large number of people, you're going to reliably
| find rare traits and conditions.
|
| [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5896987/
| goldenkey wrote:
| The majority of cannabis legalization has occurred in the
| last few years.
|
| The paper you linked uses decades old data and provides
| statistics on overall incidence of schizophrenia with
| varying durations of prevalence.
|
| Bayes rule applies here - not everyone will go buy
| cannabis and use it daily. Unless a study is accounting
| for these factors, it's useless in making a determination
| on the connection between psychosis and cannabis.
|
| Your own point applies, frequency must be adjusted for,
| by an understanding of priors.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I'm not trusting a single "study" on marijuana after the
| last time I researched an aspect the drug and every
| goddamn paper just contradicted another.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Alcohol can cause psychosis and yet most who consume it never
| reach that level.
| carapace wrote:
| I knew a guy who fell in with some folks selling drugs & self-
| improvement scams back in the 90's in the Bay Area.
|
| You get some charismatic drug dealers, throw in whatever
| pseudo-profound quasi-religious beliefs are popular at the
| moment, and include a few techniques that have some kind of
| effect (like hyperventilation) and presto! You can charge
| people $$$ for your "classes" and then sell them MDMA at your
| house party later on.
|
| My friend spun out of control, started abusing nitrous oxide,
| lost his job, his girlfriend (who was in the same group of
| druggies), and his mind. He wound up wandering the streets of
| Berkeley wrapped in a blanket for a few years. His "spiritual"
| druggie friends abandoned him.
|
| So one the one hand, it is good that we are not criminalizing
| drugs themselves, but on the other, it really is a big
| challenge to integrate these powerful chemicals into our lives,
| our communities, and our ways of healing each other.
| jotm wrote:
| Yeah, I've started buying some drugs and had to deal with
| actual "junkies"... and it's been rather eye opening. I can
| see why they just blanket ban stuff.
|
| It seems many, if not most, people, just can't control
| themselves. Ironic, since I've got major self-control issues
| myself. But seeing someone use stimulants for relaxation,
| take a week's worth of it in 3 hours, then beg for more,
| that's insane.
|
| And a few kept trying to give me advice on how to "properly"
| use them. It couldn't fit in their heads that I am not in it
| for the high (which is shit imo). I guess it affects "normal"
| people differently.
|
| It is hard for those who can benefit from all the great
| medicine out there. I wish I could get a licence to use
| anything at my own responsibility, I don't use official
| healthcare anyway (I'm glad I can get treated if I break an
| arm or get into a car accident, but beyond that... useless).
| Why am I risking prison time for trying to fix myself and
| make my life better?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-07 23:02 UTC)