[HN Gopher] Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new...
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Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for
them
Author : benbreen
Score : 175 points
Date : 2023-06-29 17:54 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| [deleted]
| andy_ppp wrote:
| My friend summed it up perfectly - "not exactly what you would
| call recreational is it?". At some dose psychedelics reveal a
| huge amount of why we are the way we are to ourselves and give us
| more powers to change our reality than we had before. But with
| great power... people who see reality as very fixed or
| particularly have very black and white moral codes probably
| shouldn't try them.
| 18pfsmt wrote:
| [flagged]
| dtgriscom wrote:
| What are you trying to say? Who is "someone"?
|
| You complain about "this website" while bringing in an
| irrelevant political argument. Much heat, no light. Who's the
| problem here?
| flangola7 wrote:
| This user was defending the Capitol insurrection 2 years
| ago with conspiracy theories. Treat everything they say as
| extremely untrustworthy.
| mistermann wrote:
| Setting the discussion of this topic without everyone
| losing their minds as a goal to be achieved via the
| intentional use of psychedelics seems like a fun and
| interesting idea for all the people in this thread who
| perceive themselves as wanting to "change the world".
|
| Before you can run, you must first learn how to walk.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| About two months ago I was at a festival with friends and a I had
| a psychedelic experience. What's funny is earlier that day I had
| just told my friends "I know this sounds boring but I don't like
| dancing that much." Then while I was tripping I found that I was
| really enjoying the dancing. I felt like I was tapping in to a
| part of myself that had been dormant for a long time. I felt
| really confident and cool and sexy dancing to the music, and had
| a wonderful time. The thing about this is that in the subsequent
| weeks and to this day the confidence is still here. I have come
| to realize that the pandemic messed me up in ways that I hadn't
| even realized! I'm pretty in touch with myself - I go to therapy
| once a week but I'm usually talking about work and relationships.
| Dating in particular felt hard and I didn't know why, but since
| rediscovering my confidence dating has been going very well for
| me. Now when I talk to people I like I'm finding them asking me
| for my number or asking me out. I had a cute friend I've been
| crushing on for a while nervously ask me for a kiss!
|
| The point is that there are parts of us that are nearly
| accessible but our brain pathways need a little temporary
| loosening to strengthen some of those pathways, and psychedelics
| can do just that. They're no panacea and it takes some experience
| to really gain the desired effects. But they can also just be
| enjoyable and they're generally harmless, and it's such a shame
| that they're so stigmatized. I live in Oakland where they have
| decriminalized mushrooms and I'd like to see more
| decriminalization and ultimately legalization of mushrooms, LSD,
| and more.
|
| I have a friend who has been doing legal ketamine therapy under
| the care of their therapist and it has helped them realize the
| ways in which they had been hanging on to old relationships which
| were holding them back. They're finding out how to advocate for
| their own needs and they're much happier for it.
|
| We've got a crisis of unhappiness in this country and psychedelic
| therapies are absolutely a powerful tool we could use to help
| people find themselves.
|
| Though I should say, probably because I just listened to a bunch
| of Noam Chomsky last night, that allowing broad swaths of the
| population to become more deeply in touch with their core needs
| threatens the status quo and current power dynamics. Honestly tho
| the structures of power are so solidified I'm not sure there's
| really much actual risk to them from drug legalization.
| ernst_klim wrote:
| I don't think there's any kind of global anti-drug conspiracy.
|
| Anti-drug fear mongering is a byproduct of few factors:
| ignorance (people confuse crack, LSD and say MDMA, labeling
| everything as drug), valid fears (LSD was legal while being
| underresearched and that lead to few terrible events), self-
| propelled drugwar cycle (drugs caused wave of fear, became a
| good target for politicians, that caused even more fear
| mongering and the cycle is closed), and valid historical
| concerns (many drugs are very bad and caused pretty terrible
| historical precedents like opium abuse in China).
|
| People are getting more educated on drugs these days, and more
| questions arise in the society regarding if certain kinds of
| drugs like LSD should be more available. Though it would be a
| long road.
| standardUser wrote:
| It's not a conspiracy, it's a well-documented effort by the
| US and other powerful nations to extort every corner of the
| planet to adopting harsh, unscientific, liberty-obliterating
| laws against drugs (except the state-sanctioned ones of
| course!) that has been going on for about a 100 years. Cracks
| are beginning to show (see Portugal, Uruguay and others), but
| that is still the global system we live under thanks to
| various UN conventions pushed by the US and the national-
| level laws that adhere to those conventions.
| napsec wrote:
| I've always been a very verbal person but the first time I
| tried mushrooms I found I wasn't able to describe my experience
| in words and I really wanted to draw it. Up until that point in
| my life I had thought of words as being the de facto correct
| way to convey thoughts, but that experience really made me
| understand that words were just my way of conveying thoughts,
| and there really isn't a correct one. It was absolutely a
| transformative experience for me and made me appreciate art,
| all forms of it, in a deeper way.
|
| Interestingly enough though that first experience with
| psychedelics was the only one I actually found transformative.
| I did mushrooms maybe half a dozen more times afterwards and
| experimented with a few other drugs including LSD and MDMA and
| I never really felt like any of those trips gave me any deeper
| insights or changed the way I viewed things.
| newacct3 wrote:
| It sounds like you were insecure about certain things like
| dating and got over it via psychedelics
|
| I mean if that works, sure. But what happens in the future if
| you latch onto some other insecurity? Will you just take a
| psychedelic again? Is that going to actually fix the problem?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I don't know if it's accurate to describe what I was going
| through as "latching on to an insecurity". I had literally
| forgotten that I am cool and sexy and this led to insecurity
| around other cool and sexy people I liked. Once I remembered
| that I am also cool and sexy, I was able to see myself on an
| even playing field with the people I like and there was
| simply no cause for insecurity.
|
| I will certainly do psychedelics again tho. When done with
| intention and maturity they're fun, harmless, and have
| generally always been positive and emotionally productive for
| me. Some years ago I had a mushroom trip that was emotionally
| challenging, but reminded me of the mortality of my aging
| parents. This led me to make more of an effort to see them
| and spend time with them. That's a wonderful outcome.
|
| The thing about psychedelics is that they basically work by
| loosening up your brain's "default mode network" which is the
| set of pathways you use to make decisions. By loosening up
| this network you can find adjacent connections that were
| almost there but had not quite clicked. So they are a tool to
| help you find things you have been missing. This is something
| I will continue to explore. On a more basic level, I found
| that a small dose of LSD at a dance party is very enjoyable
| and way better for me personally than drinking alcohol or
| consuming marijuana. Not that I need substances to have fun,
| but sometimes that's a fun way to spend an evening.
| cthalupa wrote:
| >I mean if that works, sure. But what happens in the future
| if you latch onto some other insecurity? Will you just take a
| psychedelic again? Is that going to actually fix the problem?
|
| If taking a psychedelic on occasion is effective in combating
| people's insecurities that is almost certainly one of the
| most massive wins in the history of mental health.
|
| I don't think it's nearly that simple but I am baffled by the
| idea of "taking a psychedelic cured you of this issue so what
| are you gonna do if you have another issue, cure it with
| another psychedelic, huh?" being some sort of negative thing.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > We've got a crisis of unhappiness in this country and
| psychedelic therapies are absolutely a powerful tool we could
| use to help people find themselves.
|
| While I agree with everything else you said, this bit concerns
| me. I'm certainly in favor of using these tools to help anyone
| who needs help. But maybe we should start with a mirror, and
| collectively ask, "Why are so many so unhappy?"
|
| These psychedelics can help resolve the symptoms, but what are
| we going to collectively take to address the root problem(s)?
| And when?
| golergka wrote:
| > But maybe we should start with a mirror, and collectively
| ask, "Why are so many so unhappy?"
|
| Because that's the default.. People haven't evolved to be
| happy; we have evolved to barely survive to have kids and
| care for them so that a few become adults. Being happy is the
| exception, you should ask how anyone manages that.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I sort of agree with this. We've been marketed to that we
| should be happy and that buying <thing|experience> will
| make us happy. These <things|experiences> will bring
| pleasure but they don't create meaningful happiness. As if
| pleasure and happiness are the same thing. But they are
| often conflated.
|
| I can't tell or teach people "how to be happy". I'm not
| even sure that's possible or if it's something everyone can
| do or would really want to. But I do know that being hooked
| on a treadmill of pleasurable experiences isn't it.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Happiness is a state of mind, and is a (mental,
| emotional) place, and that place is easier to occupy if
| your life is setup to make it easier. A few good friends,
| a romantic partner, meaningful work, kids is sort of the
| usual and probably pretty safe recipe. It's possible to
| have these things and be miserable, and it's possible to
| have none of them and be blissfully happy.
|
| Aristotle wrote a pretty solid book on the topic.
| newacct3 wrote:
| > We've been marketed to that we should be happy and that
| buying <thing|experience> will make us happy.
|
| Seems like the entirely idea of happiness has been
| semiotically highjacked by marketing, morality, other
| things
|
| When I mentally picture "happiness", all I really see is
| a bunch of behaviors that are frequently depicted as
| desirable in the aggregate by media and others
|
| The Buddhists are a lot more sane about this than we are.
| Imo there's so much residue around the word "happiness",
| in order to achieve a sense of peace it's better to just
| throw it out and take each day at a time
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The default is resorting to drugs, alcohol, other
| destructive behaviour, and even suicide?
|
| Maybe.
|
| But this isn't a universal default. These escapes at this
| level isn't happening everywhere in every culture, is it?
| standardUser wrote:
| Why are using drugs and alcohol automatically destructive
| behaviours? I imagine you know and work with _many_
| people who use drugs and /or alcohol and also have
| families, friends, hobbies, career trajectories and are
| overall reasonably happy, well-adjusted people. I mean,
| that describes virtually everyone I know! The problem
| cases certainly exist, but within my personal world,
| those people are the exceptions.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Oh I think people are unhappy because of an abusive political
| system designed to funnel all wealth to the top while
| everyone else works themselves to death. Collective action is
| absolutely the real solution, but psychedelics can help
| people locked in the mindset that things can't change to
| consider a better world.
|
| There are simple things, like the fact that we are isolated.
| This according to Noam Chomsky is an intentional and
| desirable outcome of a corporate mass media system that wants
| to keep us separated. And a nice psychedelic trip with
| friends is a great way to remember not just that you like
| being with your friends, but that the world that keeps you
| apart is genuinely inhumane, and we should start to look
| deeper at how to solve these issues.
|
| Basically I think psychedelics can be a tool that leads to
| the collective action you have rightly pointed out is the
| ultimate solution.
| ecshafer wrote:
| The reverse seems much much more likely. The abusive
| political system pushes drug legalization as an opiate of
| the masses so they are more content to deal with the
| abusive political system. A weekend of legal drug use to
| make the pain go away and disrupt solidarity.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Opiates are quite a different animal. A weekend of
| psychedelics with your friends is not going to help you
| ignore anything.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| re: opiate of the masses
|
| https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/the+opiate+of+the+ma
| sse...
|
| In short, it's not to be read literally.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I'm aware, and in context with religion is an apt
| metaphor. But in context with psychedelics it's not.
|
| They're not a numbing agents, they're catalysts for
| change, that's why they're applicable to therapy in ways
| that opiates are not.
| newacct3 wrote:
| > But maybe we should start with a mirror, and collectively
| ask, "Why are so many so unhappy?"
|
| How is this even supposed to be determined? It isn't like you
| can test for happiness like you test a pool for Ph levels.
| Assuming we can is optimistic
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > These psychedelics can help resolve the symptoms
|
| My experience with psychedelic-assisted insight is not
| consistent with this. You have the right trip, identify some
| root-causes that you've been overlooking, and then sober-you
| has the rest of your life to do something with that new
| awareness.
|
| They're not painkillers. If anything, they're the opposite.
| There are all of these rumors about LSD causing back pain
| because people who have been ignoring back pain trip and are
| suddenly aware of it again. Such an experience caused me to
| upgrade my chair and start practicing yoga, for instance.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > They're not painkillers
|
| In the traditional sense (e.g., alcohol, Oxycodine, etc) no
| they are not. But they are mind altering, literally. And
| that alteration is an opportunity to break patterns,
| unhealthy patterns. Being in that other state of mind shows
| you another state of mind can exist. You experienced it. So
| you take that away with you and ideally build new healthier
| paths.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I totally agree. Isn't that quite different than what
| painkillers do?
|
| Presumably your new path has something to do with a
| problem that you had. It's not helping you cope with
| having the problem, it's prodding you to solve the
| problem.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I took 100ug LSD twice and I was suicidal after it for years
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Great example.
| slibhb wrote:
| For everyone who has an experience like you, there's someone
| like this guy: https://www.ecstaticintegration.org/p/dmt-
| derealization-and-...
|
| Anyway, since you were dancing, I assume you used MDMA which is
| much "less psychedelic" than acid or DMT (and much more of a
| stimulant). There's also more potential for misuse and
| addiction. Ketamine, too, turns out to be quite addictive by
| the way.
|
| It seems clear that psychedelics are going mainstream and,
| unlike the 60s and 70s, they will be legal in some places. I'm
| not convinced that ths will be a net good, partly because it's
| not clear that it was a net good in the 60s and 70s, but we'll
| see.
| [deleted]
| knightofmars wrote:
| You are implying a 1:1 relationship with good experiences and
| bad experiences. That's not how drugs work. It is important
| to know the actual reality of this type of ratio so that
| individuals who are looking to use a drug of this nature can
| be well informed.
| slibhb wrote:
| No, I'm positing a 1:1 relationship between "holy shit I am
| a new person" in a good way and "holy shit I am a new
| person" in a bad way.
|
| That's not the same as good/bad experiences.
| cthalupa wrote:
| I don't think there's nearly enough data available to
| posit it one way or the other - anything we say is almost
| certainly going to be purely anecdotal.
|
| My anecdotal experience has been that the vast majority
| of people who have used DMT have not felt like a "new
| person", and the few that have, have felt so in a
| positive way.
| p0pcult wrote:
| [dead]
| marcod wrote:
| > Ketamine, too, turns out to be quite addictive by the way.
|
| https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-07-ketamine-
| addiction.ht...
|
| I have done the medically assisted Ketamine trips. No sign
| them being addicting to me whatsoever. It didn't do a whole
| lot for me, but some of the other peeps in my cohort had
| amazing results working through old grief.
| slibhb wrote:
| It's well known that ketamine is addictive. Just google
| "ketamine addiction". It's an effective antidepressant for
| many people but you can't take it long term because
| tolerance develops quickly.
| golergka wrote:
| There's nothing stopping you from dancing on acid or shrooms.
| In fact, that's the whole point of psytrance.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Sometimes people try psychedelics and have great experiences
| just like that! Sometimes they try psychedelics and they have
| baaaaaad experiences, that are essentially traumatic and result
| in lingering negative feelings.
|
| Risk versus reward!
|
| ... but you don't have to risk much, for your first time. Yes,
| tripping with your friends at a festival is great - but you can
| also do a little, on your own terms, to try it out, and get a
| feel for whether it's the sort of thing you're interested in.
|
| Possible benefits of micro dosing notwithstanding, you won't
| get the dramatic effects everyone tells stories about without
| taking a significant dose... but that's okay, it doesn't have
| to be an all-or-nothing arrangement. You can try a little, you
| can increase or decrease your dosage next time, you can take
| notice of the conditions surrounding your hood and your bad
| trips, and - I mean what I'm really describing here is how to
| learn to use a drug responsibly. It's like any other powerful
| experience, you need to be smart about how you approach it.
|
| I think people get suckered in by unnuanced anecdotes on either
| side - "it was amazing, it cured my depression!" and "it was
| awful, it escalated my schizophrenia" are on opposite ends of a
| spectrum. I always think everyone owes it to themselves to
| experience wherever along that spectrum they are comfortable
| going - not necessarily a psychedelic evangelist per se, just
| very much in favour of careful deliberate experimentation with
| your own brain and body chemistry.
|
| Glad you had a good trip! Ones where you come away learning
| something about yourself are the best.
| itomato wrote:
| They are not all equal. Not the people, the experience, the
| substance, or the sum of all.
|
| Without study and care and the ability to be Frank about such
| things as purity, setting and set, those people are going to
| fail to realize any "reward".
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > Sometimes people try psychedelics and have great
| experiences just like that! Sometimes they try psychedelics
| and they have baaaaaad experiences, that are essentially
| traumatic and result in lingering negative feelings.
|
| > Risk versus reward!
|
| Well something I did not say in my comment but I believe is
| very important is that it's not just "do drugs, win prizes"
| it's "take time over a period of years to learn how
| psychedelics work with your body, try some experiences in
| emotionally safe spaces, reflect on those trips with your
| friend and therapist, and develop some confidence to work
| your way up in dosage as you learn to understand how it works
| for you".
|
| While some people may be able to randomly take a higher end
| dose and have a good result, I certainly advocate that people
| take their time to get in to these substances. I advocate for
| legalization because of what is possible with very careful
| use of them as a tool, but it takes some care to learn how to
| use them properly!
| jagaerglad wrote:
| I have been struggling a lot with dating. Despite being a quite
| social, and often popular guy to be around, there has been some
| block/hump that always stood in the way of dating. Funnily
| enough it struck me some weeks ago that I probably have to go
| on a psychadelic trip to rewire my brain to be able to show my
| interest romatically to others. What I'm scared of is the
| possibility of it having some other undesired effect though
|
| I had a similar experience with dancing though. Thought I hated
| it, and I always had to force myself to do it, until I started
| (modestly) drinking alcohol. My body would dance for me and I
| would enjoy it. The effect more or less stuck around and I even
| genuinely have days of more confidence after a night with
| alcohol.
|
| All of this is mildly depressing though. It feels as though we
| are just our brains (maybe obviously), but just that we're the
| strange effects of the functions of a non-magical/soul-less
| organ in our heads primarily just meant to steer our bodies.
| Those thoughts make drugs both existentially liberating but at
| the same time also "imprisoning" for me
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Well the thing about tripping is you can't really predict
| what the result will be. I was able to realize I am cool and
| sexy because I have been doing a lot of work on myself to get
| over some past issues, and the trip just helped a few things
| click that I probably would have figured out in the next year
| or so either way. Success at dating is mostly about being
| comfortable with yourself, and that takes therapy and
| personal growth. If you're doing those things, psychedelics
| can help make connections you are close to, but I would not
| think that any given trip is going to solve that particular
| problem if it's not one you're already making progress on.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > that I probably have to go on a psychadelic trip to rewire
| my brain
|
| Do you really need the permission of drugs to do what you
| want?
|
| You already have your outcome. You know where you are. To
| what end do you need the drugs?
|
| Let's say you do this trip.. and it turns out the thing
| blocking you from dating is that you were molested at a young
| age. Those memories come flooding back to you at 2am while
| you're sweating like a pig and vomiting repeatedly.
|
| Is that the right outcome? Is that the outcome you want?
|
| Worse yet, what if there is no deep seated reason why you're
| afraid of intimacy and dependence? What if you are just
| scared of it for no reason?
|
| There is no secret enlightenment to be had. There is only you
| and your fear blocking the door, and the fear isn't real.
| standardUser wrote:
| You could just as easily be describing therapy. Of course
| people sometimes need external help to achieve their goals
| or change their perspectives! Sometimes it's therapy,
| sometimes a vacation, sometimes a heart-to-heart with a
| close friend and sometimes a bunch of acid.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Dropping acid is maybe not the same thing as therapy
| sessions with a well qualified professional who is board
| certified, licensed and so on.
|
| If you just mean "try random things to see how it helps",
| I suppose you could start by finding Jesus or licking a
| cattle prod. Why limit yourself to just a few methods of
| magic insight?
| bambataa wrote:
| To sort of add to this, I've found that meditation has had
| far more profound effects than psychedelics ever did. Maybe
| they help to kick start things or show how much of yourself
| you don't know.
| [deleted]
| kortex wrote:
| > All of this is mildly depressing though. It feels as though
| we are just our brains (maybe obviously), but just that we're
| the strange effects of the functions of a non-magical/soul-
| less organ in our heads primarily just meant to steer our
| bodies. Those thoughts make drugs both existentially
| liberating but at the same time also "imprisoning" for me
|
| That is certainly one way of looking at things, and one of
| the more frequent perspectives I harbor. But I've also had
| enough trips down the rabbit hole to realize there's more to
| it than that. _Way_ more to it.
|
| We are definitely strange effects for sure. We are haunted
| atoms that formed in the core of a dying star. Weird, right?
| If you find that worldview imprisoning, I encourage you to
| question it. Magic is often simply what you need it to be, no
| need to get hung up on whether magic is "real" or not,
| because that doesn't actually matter.
|
| Check out Discordianism if you haven't already. It's kinda
| like hot swapping reality tunnels. No need to commit to one
| ontology all the time :).
| mahathu wrote:
| >I have been struggling a lot with dating.
|
| >I probably have to go on a psychadelic trip to rewire my
| brain to be able to show my interest romatically to others
|
| u wot m8
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I totally agree that:
|
| > We've got a crisis of unhappiness in this country and
| psychedelic therapies are absolutely a powerful tool we could
| use to help people find themselves.
|
| But our blues haven't appeared from nowhere. We have
| significant cultural institutions that function primarily by
| dividing the populace against itself. Getting healthy likely
| means waking up to the fact that we're under attack and doing
| something other than "self care" about it.
|
| So I disagree with:
|
| > the structures of power are so solidified I'm not sure
| there's really much actual risk to them from drug legalization.
|
| They seem pretty shaky to me. Which is for the best. Being
| powerful _should_ come with a fear of the people you have power
| over. If you 're one weird trip away from a revolution then
| it's probably time to start treating your people better.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Getting healthy likely means waking up to the fact that
| we're under attack and doing something other than "self care"
| about it.
|
| I pretty strongly disagree with this sentiment. The vast
| majority of misery in this country is self-inflicted from
| buying into a worldview and lifestyle that is inherently
| unfulfilling. The self care of conferring oneself from that
| mindset goes a long way.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Ok but who is selling that worldview, and how does our
| behavior change when we stop buying into it?
|
| Being bought in means that we're afraid to talk to our
| families or neighbors about certain topics for fear of
| things getting too spicy in one way or another, it keeps us
| divided. Apply self care (psychedelic assisted or
| otherwise) for long enough that we're not afraid anymore
| and maybe you've achieved your mental health goals, but now
| you're having the kind of conversations that change things.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Ok but who is selling that worldview, and how does our
| behavior change when we stop buying into it?
|
| That's a complex question and I probably don't have the
| perfect answer. If I were to take a stab at it I would
| say the top causes are consumerism, politics, and trained
| helplessness are at the top of the list.
|
| As for who's selling it; basiclly everyone is.
| Individuals and companies want you to think that whatever
| they are selling will make you happy. Politicians want
| you to think you need them to do good in the world. Your
| neighbors want you to be impressed with their good values
| and status.
|
| In my experience and opinion, once people escape, the
| behavior changes in that they start actually doing things
| that make them happy, opposed to things that they are
| told _should_ make them happy. This can take an infinite
| number of forms. It might mean going out and helping your
| neighbors instead of watching political news. It might be
| going for a walk instead of watching Netflix. It might
| mean reading a book instead of browsing twitter.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| When the previous poster said:
|
| > A crisis of unhappiness in this country
|
| I think he was right to say "this country". I've been
| places where, by all objective measures, the people have
| it much worse, but I don't get the sense that they're
| unhappy the way that we are.
|
| > As for who's selling it; basically everyone is
|
| If that we're the case, it would be happening everywhere.
| We'd just call it the human condition. The contrast upon
| returning to the US wouldn't feel so stark.
|
| I think there is a relatively small demographic who is
| selling the uniquely dissatisfying American worldview
| much more strongly than the rest of us are. And conscious
| or otherwise, they have their reasons.
|
| If we start ignoring the programming en masse, I expect
| they'll switch to less subtle means of control.
|
| I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. I think everyone
| should trip at least once precisely because it helps you
| cast off habits of mind that aren't serving you. But when
| that capability is in everybody's toolkit... Well I think
| it's going to be a bumpy ride. Worth taking, but bumpy.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| To be clear, when I say basically everyone is selling it,
| I'm speaking in a us centric context. I don't think the
| phenomenon is unique to the United States, but I do think
| it is more pronounced here. I too have met people that
| live on less than a dollar a day and are happier than
| people making six or seven figures.
|
| When I say everyone is selling it, what I mean is that if
| they have bought into it, they are propagating it as a
| normative worldview. I think is accurate and the only way
| such ideas survive. It is systemic and relies on Broad
| acceptance. At the center, it depends on hundreds of
| millions of people believing in it.
|
| It is helpful to step outside of that system and get a
| radically different perspective. Psychedelics are just
| one way to do this, and probably not even the best. The
| challenge is that even after experiencing that
| perspective, you step back into a world where everyone
| believes something different and you start to forget.
|
| The solution is pretty simple. For one you have to make
| an intentional effort to be present in your life and live
| it in a way you find meaningful, despite external forces
| trying to convince you otherwise. Second, you have to
| surround yourself with friends and loved ones that
| reinforce this healthy world view.
|
| In the end, I think I'm less cynical than you are. I
| don't think there are more powerful tools for mind
| control waiting to be deployed. I also don't think it
| would be a bumpy ride if more people took control of
| their lives to improve their happiness. Life and society
| would simply get better and better as more people did so.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| There is some history in the US with regards to power
| structures, getting needs met, and psychedelics. Mostly in
| the late 60's and early 70's there was a big counterculture
| movement that focused on exactly those things, and the power
| structures at the time were certainly threatened, and created
| things like cointelpro.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#:~:text=Overall%2.
| ...
| nuc1e0n wrote:
| I think the key factors to consider when talking about the best
| way to regard psychedelic substances is what potential benefits
| or harms do they have at the individual or societal level, for
| example an overdose that causes permanent debilitation or death.
| In my view, any potential regulation or guidance should be
| seeking to minimise the harms while maximizing the benefits. I
| also think historical precedent should be considered as part of
| the process to identifying that.
|
| As an aside to some of the comments made in the article, you can
| still be religious without theism. And in a way any religious
| experience could also be considered as a kind of mental health
| medication.
| coder4life wrote:
| https://archive.is/XCkZD
| k__ wrote:
| Read stuff from Thomas Metzinger. I think, he has really good
| ideas for the integration of psychedelics and meditation to get
| better insights to your own consciousness.
| triyambakam wrote:
| > I have met others who only stand and look at you blankly, who
| have lost their desire, even their self-respect. They have lost,
| shall we say, the structure through which their mind force
| previously flowed, and it has not been replaced.
|
| > What happens to a Hindu yogi when he enters a superconscious
| state of bliss in which his mind opens up, turns to light, and he
| sees the world revolving below the state of his suspended
| consciousness? He has arrived at this state through many years of
| practice in concentration, meditation and contemplation, many
| years of building strong nerve fiber. But in a momentary high on
| LSD or any other powerful psychedelic, such as mushrooms, peyote,
| ecstasy or DMT, the nerve structure is strained, in a sense which
| we can best describe as abnormal, to allow the individual to
| reach this exalted consciousness. Coming out of it, the result is
| often a kind of shock in which the person has a great difficulty
| in readjusting to any kind of normal routine. [1]
|
| [1] Living with Siva, 79
| mightyham wrote:
| There are already tons of legal forms of escapism, which is
| exactly what psychedelics are, so I fail to see why it's so
| imperative that they become more socially accepted.
|
| I've also tried my fair share of psychedelics and find it
| completely laughable that people try to raise them up as these
| spiritual or therapeutic tools. Just because they make you
| hallucinate does not mean they "open up your mind" or make you
| think any more critically than alcohol or other drugs.
| oslem wrote:
| Are there alternate tools that you believe can achieve improved
| critical thinking or "opening up your mind."
| standardUser wrote:
| It sounds like you've had very boring and uninteresting
| psychedelic trips. It's kind of laughable to even think that
| any benefits come from the "hallucinating" aspect of the trip,
| as you imply.
| cthalupa wrote:
| I have never found psychedelics to be more than an enjoyable
| way to spend an evening or weekend, but a large body of
| psychiatrists and medical researchers take the potential of
| psychedelics as a a therapeutic tool quite seriously and there
| is scientific research to support this position. If you find it
| completely laughable, I would hope you have some sort of
| significant scientific evidence to support that position.
|
| As for the spiritual bit, I don't understand how you could
| begin to argue this point. A spiritual experience is subjective
| and dependent on the person - if people can find meditation,
| walks in nature, staring up at the stars, listening to music,
| reading a book, etc., to be spiritual experiences, why in the
| world couldn't a trip on LSD do the same?
| themoonisachees wrote:
| They are being raised as therapeutic tools because research
| shows that empirically, psychedelics do help with some mental
| issues, and sometimes in better ways than conventional
| medicine. They need to become more socially accepted because
| current legislation bans a lot of research on them under cover
| of the war on drugs, an that legislation can be changed if
| public sentiment changes. If tobacco was discovered to be good
| for say, depression, it'd be stupid to ban researchers from
| acquiring any under the guise of "tobacco cause cancer so
| nobody should be allowed to buy it ever". On top of that, drugs
| are absolutely winning the war on drugs, because the current
| policy of punishing users for either having fun on their own
| time or being addicts who literally will die if they stop is
| absurd. There is a middle ground between throwing addicts in
| prison and selling heroin in cafes, and that comes with mental
| help and social assistance to those in positions where hard
| drugs and dependance on them is preferable to experiencing life
| sober.
| vlasev wrote:
| The Venn diagram for psychedelics include escapism, but it
| includes a lot more as well. Psychedelics can be a powerful
| tool, and for all the good that they can bring you, they can
| also wreck your shit for a while. It really depends on who you
| are, what context you take them in and what you do afterwards.
| This applies more broadly to other substances as well, even
| ones not typically seen as psychedelic, like alcohol and
| caffeine. There can be therapeutic effects with those as well.
|
| For example, if you're feeling really stuck at a certain point
| in life and you take the time to get drunk by yourself and
| listen to some enjoyable music, you can end up being really
| honest with yourself and become aware of what you need to do to
| get unstuck. But you can also get drunk at a party and make a
| number of bad decisions that you'll regret later. It be like
| that when it comes to psychedelics as well.
|
| Imho, the main benefits of psychedelics are two-fold.
|
| One has to do with subjective experience - psychedelics can
| simply provide you with a different experience, a different
| point of view. This can help you see that there are other
| possibilities for the narratives you tell yourself and this can
| be beneficial. Depression is a good example here - it's super
| easy to forget what it's like to not be depressed and
| psychedelics can provide a temporary clarity about it that can
| later help get out of the depressive state.
|
| The temporary difference in point of view can also cultivate
| more skepticism in general. This is especially true for certain
| "truths" we hold about ourselves (like insecurities,
| inadequacies, fears). Psychedelics can open us up to consider
| different causes for our behaviours and this can be therapeutic
| as well. But I gotta say, they can also make you lose yourself
| within a new false narrative, so skepticism is a powerful ally
| here.
|
| The other benefit simply has to do with neuroplasticity. Most
| psychedelics open up a dose-dependent learning period that
| lasts from days to weeks. That's why something like a shroom
| trip doesn't really end until a few weeks after the shroom is
| ingested, when that learning period eventually closes. Even if
| you didn't experience anything spiritually or psychologically
| significant in the acute phase of the trip, you can still
| benefit greatly from the learning window that opens up
| afterwards.
|
| It's a good time to try a new activity, do some self-
| reflection, change a habit, have a therapy session or two,
| connect with people on a deeper level. You might be surprised
| by your learning abilities after a shroom trip. But I gotta
| say, all this also opens you up to learning "bad things" too,
| so again, skepticism helps here.
|
| Yeah, you can do all that without psychedelics as well, but
| there are a couple of problems here - you might be unaware that
| there's something you can actually do, and even if you are, you
| might not know what to look at or how to change your point of
| view about it. Psychedelics can provide a strong emotional and
| psychological example that can guide you in that process.
| shlant wrote:
| > I've also tried my fair share of psychedelics and find it
| completely laughable that people try to raise them up as these
| spiritual or therapeutic tools. Just because they make you
| hallucinate does not mean they "open up your mind" or make you
| think any more critically than alcohol or other drugs.
|
| "I didn't have the experience some people talk about so I will
| ridicule and discount all those perspectives"
|
| Cool. Great contribution, thanks. It's too bad you didn't have
| those experiences people talk about because maybe it would have
| helped check your ego.
| jokoon wrote:
| Whatever you do please don't advocate to replace ssri with
| psychedelics. Listen to a doctor or psychiatrist, just like it
| was for vaccines.
|
| And avoid personal anecdote, they have little value compared to
| what a doctor says.
|
| Thanks in advance.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| My doc is great at medicine, knows fuck-all about tripping.
| bigyikes wrote:
| I agree with your main point, but the bit about anecdotes is
| tricky. We live in a society where research and information on
| these substances has been suppressed. As a result, anecdotes,
| to a large degree, are all we have.
|
| This is gradually changing as we see new studies emerging with
| the relaxation of regulation. However, the picture the data
| paint is still quite limited compared to the wealth of personal
| experiences that have been recorded over the decades.
| caniszczyk wrote:
| agreed... I know a lot more folks that SSRIs have messed up
| in a variety ways than psychedelics... we should offer folks
| MORE options when fighting depression/anxiety and encourage
| experimentation
| jasonhansel wrote:
| The fact that you only have anecdotes doesn't make those
| anecdotes more reliable.
| p0pcult wrote:
| [dead]
| HeWhoLurksLate wrote:
| It seems to me that this is a fairly dangerous take- during and
| after the schooling required to become a doctor, surgeon, or
| nurse, the real-world experiences that these medical
| professionals have tends, over time, to outweigh the
| institutional knowledge they started with.
|
| Ideally, reading new research should be part and parcel to
| everybody's professional career, but a _ton_ of the advice that
| you 'll receive from your doctor will be informed more by
| experience (compounding anecdote) than anything else.
| the6thwonder wrote:
| > avoid personal anecdote, they have little value compared to
| what a doctor says.
|
| Doctors are like engineers. There is a body of science and
| research for their field. They were once trained on part of it.
| But day to day each individual doctor is a practitioners. What
| they say is often just their own anecdotes. Research on a topic
| may exist but it's up to personal interest and work style
| whether they read it.
| jokoon wrote:
| Doctors are not like engineers.
|
| Human health and biology is far more complex and tricky that
| whatever engineers deal with.
| the6thwonder wrote:
| I agree with that difference, but it's not relevant to the
| comment I made.
| chownie wrote:
| Counterpoint: I listened to my doctors for 8 years and took the
| medication they advised, didn't help me one bit.
|
| Getting off SSRIs, changing my work situation and enjoying some
| LSD made a much bigger positive difference than endless sweaty
| nights on Prozac ever did.
| HaZeust wrote:
| The reverse works for many other people. NEVER prescribe a
| "one-size-fits-all" policy or perspective for psychological
| methodologies.
| itomato wrote:
| We can drop the CIA concocted narratives anytime.
|
| Calling them out is the first step.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I agree, I sometimes run into people - usually corporate
| employee, college educated people - "straight edge" people that
| are just getting around to experimenting with psychadelics and
| say things like "I'm not really into _drugs_ " and treading
| carefully for that reason
|
| Its a smart approach
|
| But being unable to distinguish between "drugs" is sad
|
| Its a categorization problem, its a anti drug education problem
| that also categorized everything together and conflated
| everything with wild rumors. Its a supply chain problem as
| substances do need to be tested to ensure you are only getting
| your psychedelic.
| benbreen wrote:
| I'm the author of the OP. Happy to talk more about the history of
| psychedelics.
|
| I also wanted to flag that if anyone is interested in some of the
| historical sources I cite here (such as the Jesuit talking about
| ayahuasca in the 18th century) I go into more detail in this
| journal article, which is open access:
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/a...
| ImAnAmateur wrote:
| I've got a question for you. Some people are very carefree with
| their use of psychoactive drugs. I'd say nearly everyone I've
| ever seen post online about trying mushrooms, LSD, etc. has
| done it for fun (or the experience) instead of spiritual,
| psychological, or medicinal reasons.
|
| What risks are they exposing themselves to? I'd hate to have a
| friend hurt themselves.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > What risks are they exposing themselves to? I'd hate to
| have a friend hurt themselves.
|
| Have your friend research Erowid, a place where people have
| posted all possible sorts of information about mind-altering
| substances and their risks.
| ImAnAmateur wrote:
| That is a good source. I've forgotten about that site for
| years. Thank you.
| colecut wrote:
| I would imagine the same risks as someone doing it for
| spiritual, psychological, or medicinal reasons
| operatingthetan wrote:
| Right, I'm confused what they are trying to accomplish
| gatekeeping others intent.
| ImAnAmateur wrote:
| How is that gatekeeping? I'm trying to ask about what the
| risks are for people who take it at a party or a festival
| or at home for fun.
|
| >Psychedelics like psilocybin have a remarkably benign
| safety profile relative to other Schedule One drugs, not
| to mention very different social, cultural and historical
| roles. Lumping psychedelics together with powerful
| opioids like fentanyl misdirects resources, diminishes
| buy-in from the public and undercuts the legitimacy of
| federal drug laws.
|
| The author of the article does not specify what risks
| these drugs have. Simply that they are relatively less
| dangerous than synthetic opioids.
| otherme123 wrote:
| There are some studies, and LSD is quite safe. Way safer
| than alcohol, for example.
|
| But being on a very tight Schedule I (like MDMA, also
| quite safe), worse even than morphine, good luck
| researching the risks. It's a catch 22: we don't know the
| risks, so we ban studies about the substance. We don't
| have studies about the risks, so we cannot unban it.
|
| When LSD was liberally consumed (1960's), there were
| almost no deaths related to it. And the very few reports
| are suspiciously "suicides" or "near suicides", which all
| of them seems to be accidents while tripping, like any
| drunk commit everyday (and not like LSD makes you
| suicidal by choice). More serious reports have found
| _zero_ deaths directly linked with LSD toxicity:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29408722/
| umanwizard wrote:
| Sadly, "LSD is safe" doesn't mean "things sold as LSD and
| that feel similar to LSD are safe". Lots of research
| chemical LSD analogues feel very similar to LSD but are
| dangerous. Just wanted to leave that disclaimer in case
| anyone on the fence about trying it reads this. Be
| careful.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| MDMA is not quite safe. We have decades of research to
| prove otherwise now. r/DrugNerds have been putting out
| study after study pointing this out. The protocols
| required and safety measures for how often to dose are
| not what folks are going to be doing generally. It is
| neurotoxic.
|
| LSD on the other hand, yes quite safe (and even good) for
| _your brain_ , unless you're prone to mental illness or
| currently suffering from mental illness.
| otherme123 wrote:
| Let me put it in another way: safety profile of MDMA is
| better than lots and lots of other clinically approved
| drugs. And much safer than substances like alcohol, that
| are not only neurotoxic but hepatotoxic, carcinogenic,
| highly addictive and with worse withdrawal.
|
| There was a time when MDMA was prescribed to thousands of
| people, and nobody had a problem. Of course some people
| will always abuse any substance, we currently have people
| killing themselves with food or sugar. But the best
| solution is not to classify it as Schedule I, which in
| practice is a full ban even for research.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| You're continuing to make bad claims. I'm taking the time
| to debunk them because the safety of people reading these
| comments is important to me.
|
| MDMA is far more _neurotoxic_ than alcohol. The oxidative
| stress put on the brain is potent. When you add elevated
| body temperature, which most folks on MDMA are likely to
| find themselves experiencing (dancing, hot club, lots of
| people), the damage climbs precipitously. In primates,
| damage to the brain has been detected after even single
| use.
|
| If people want to take drugs, that's their prerogative
| but after "playing" with drugs when I was younger, the
| only recreational drugs I can recommend are certain
| psychedelics if people care about their health, physical
| or mental. You can replace alcohol and ecstasy in many
| settings with a very low dose of psychedelics and get
| similar social opening effects with none of the damage of
| either.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Would it be possible to provide some of these studies?
|
| Whenever I look I can only find reference to long term
| exposure, and meta-studies reviewing more moderate use
| seem to show minimal, if any, issues, e.g. https://www.sc
| iencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...
|
| To my knowledge, the one study that people held up as
| showing damage from MDMA usage after a single dose was
| later retracted, as they had mixed up the vials of MDMA
| and methamphetamine. They were never able to replicate
| the results after resolving this mistake. https://en.wiki
| pedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_dopaminer...
|
| Disclaimer: I have taken MDMA a couple of times over the
| years, though I have never particularly enjoyed the
| experience and have never considered doing it regularly.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| Sure, happy to. Here's a meta-study [1] that cites
| another meta-study showing single use harm. [2] This
| study [3] shows changes in serotonin patterns seven years
| after administration in primates.
|
| MisterYouAreSoDumb was a legendary Redditor who
| frequently commented on the topic of harm. This one's a
| collection of references and a good TL;DR. [4] It's ten
| years old now but there's still a treasure trove of
| material here. Another comment from them that is the
| beginning of a series. [5] And as I mentioned earlier,
| the safety protocols required to mitigate the damage are
| extensive. You cannot rely on users going the distance to
| have a less-harmful experience. You must assume it's
| being taken under non-ideal conditions, with plenty of
| redosing, which is multiplicatively more damaging, as the
| axon terminals involved will simply run dry.
|
| Hope that's helpful.
|
| I'm not here to judge. I've also taken MDMA in my youth
| and quite a lot of it. But I do wish we had these
| resources available then as we do now so I could have
| made a more informed decision.
|
| My personal, anecdotal, experience is I had a bunch of
| pretty magical experiences with MDMA in my youth which
| I've never been able to reproduce since. That was
| personal confirmation that irrevocable changes had
| occurred due to use. The internet is chock full of
| similar stories.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181923
|
| [2] https://sci-
| hub.se/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12869661
|
| [3] https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/19/12/5096.f
| ull.pdf
|
| [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/15ix0s/commen
| t/c7mvi...
|
| [5] https://www.reddit.com/r/DrugNerds/comments/13lp0b/md
| ma_neur...
| cthalupa wrote:
| Thanks! These are interesting.
|
| Couple of notes I made from my first perusal.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181923
|
| They point out that they showed neurotoxicity in animal
| studies with doses higher than those typically for
| recreational users. In studies of human users, they did
| find evidence of brain structural alteration, but no
| large-scale cognitive impairment of clinically relevant
| proportions. Fairly significant evidence of impact to
| memory.
|
| https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/19/12/5096.full.
| pdf
|
| They chose dosages for MDMA here that are extremely high.
| 80-120mg is the standard recreational dose with anything
| above 150mg being considered high, but the dosage they
| chose would be the by-weight equivalent of a 160lb person
| taking 340mg of MDMA. This looks intentional - they say
| in the study the selected a dosage that was known to
| cause brain lesions. The sci-hub study references a
| species-specific dose scaling chart that explains some of
| this, but it also disclaims that the science of the dose
| scaling is disputed. I'm not super sure what to make of
| it - it stands to reason that too much of anything can be
| dangerous, but it doesn't seem like the science is close
| to being settled on whether or not these dosing
| differences make sense.
|
| I haven't yet had a chance to go through all the
| references from the reddit post, but I'll work through
| them.
|
| I think it's pretty compelling evidence that there is
| risk in taking MDMA long term, or in very high dosages on
| more acute timescales. I don't know that what I have read
| so far counters the science in the meta-study I linked
| around more moderate use, since that did draw primarily
| on observational studies that included imaging of human
| users. I'm no expert, though, and hopefully no one
| reading this is taking my understanding of the science as
| anything resembling authoritative.
|
| It does further highlight a lot of the potential risks in
| taking street drugs, though - you never know the actual
| potency or chemical composition of what you're being
| sold.
|
| >My personal, anecdotal, experience is I had a bunch of
| pretty magical experiences with MDMA in my youth which
| I've never been able to reproduce since. That was
| personal confirmation that irrevocable changes had
| occurred due to use. The internet is chock full of
| similar stories.
|
| Hmm. There's a lot of experiences I found magical at one
| point in time that I've never been able to reproduce,
| none of them related to drugs. I think it's hard for
| humans to disentangle their perceptions from the novelty
| of new experiences, the impact of their mental state,
| point in life, etc. etc.
|
| At any rate, thank you again for the wealth of
| information.
| resolutebat wrote:
| MDMA is also addictive, because it makes you feel good
| (it's not called "ecstasy" for nothing), and builds
| tolerance rapidly, so you need to keep increasing the
| dose. No, it's nowhere near as dangerous as
| meth/heroin/cocaine, but I have seen people spiral into
| pretty dangerous usage patterns, including switching to
| harder drugs when ecstasy isn't cutting it any more and
| they're stuck in a multi-day depressive withdrawal slump.
|
| For all practical purposes, none of this applies to LSD,
| since trips are much more intense and unpredictable.
| Although there is a small subset of psychonauts who adopt
| an extreme sports mindset and intentionally push the
| envelope by taking larger and larger doses.
| nemosaltat wrote:
| Since we're speculating. I would imagine like just about
| all human experience, framing, priming and setting matter
| quite a lot.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Given that, it seems like fun and pleasure are probably
| safer than medicinal.
| bozhark wrote:
| Recreational will happen despite the restrictions. Why
| not tax it an apply the funds where socially needed?
| colecut wrote:
| I agree that set and setting are huge factors in your
| psychedelics experience. I am 'speculating' but also do
| have a lot of experience in a variety of psychedelics.
|
| I'm not sure where "intent" falls on that spectrum. The
| vast majority of my experiences have been "for fun" or
| "for the experience" at music festivals, concerts, or at
| home..
|
| I have also taken ayahuasca and changa with a shaman. I
| was doing it "for the experience", but how is that
| different from someone else who was in the same room as
| me doing it an attempt to treat depression or anxiety?
| How would the risks be different?
|
| Being an anxious or depressed person in general may
| increase risk factors of negative experience. This is
| still not related to intent.
| bozhark wrote:
| Anxious or depressed people benefit from the experience
| more so than someone of speculatively sound mind.
| colecut wrote:
| I think by the nature of their position, they have more
| to potentially benefit.
|
| But it's totally possible for an anxious person to end up
| worse.
| [deleted]
| coderintherye wrote:
| Erowid is a great resource for these sorts of questions:
| https://erowid.org
|
| In fact they have an answer specific to your question on
| mushrooms: https://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=1606
|
| In short, there is very little risk but whether or not
| someone should choose to take something should still be an
| informed choice. As far as risk to life, there's been few or
| no reported deaths purely due to ingesting psilocybin.
| However, there are small risks around operating heavy
| machinery (e.g. driving) after as well as small risks around
| ensuring you are actually ingesting a safe psilocybe mushroom
| as opposed to a different toxic mushroom.
| ImAnAmateur wrote:
| >Answered by murple in 2001
|
| I think I may have read this exact post 10+ years ago.
| Reminds me of old homes that have since been sold. What
| links to this Q&A?
|
| This is an example of some of the better sources of info on
| that site: https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd.shtml
| jasonhansel wrote:
| They are not doctors. I would not trust that website as a
| source of medical advice.
| indrora wrote:
| I was explicitly told to read up on several topics from
| Erowid by my psychiatrist upon starting an
| antidepressant. Her comment was: "I can't tell you what
| you'll experience, but if you're willing, here's some
| resources". I read the comments, including quite a bit of
| medical research that I would have been otherwise unaware
| of, and was prepared for some of the weirder effects that
| can come with it (the drug itself is a dopamine receptor
| augmenter).
|
| The fact of the matter is that a lot of researchers
| depend on the folk knowledge that is stuffed into Erowid
| for their own research because it's one of the higest
| quality sources of information on the actual effects of
| various substances that people have been putting into
| their bodies. Much of the research on these substances
| cannot be funded easily (federal law in the US bans the
| use of federal funds to research LSD, marijuana, etc due
| to their classification by the DEA of "intractably bad
| for society, useless for medicine, and not worthy of
| academic study.") This means that researchers have to
| turn to these contemporaneous accounts.
|
| Nobody calls Erowid "medical advice." It's the tripper's
| notebook, shared and amalgamated by many a substance
| user. It's the closest thing we have to a Merck Manual
| for things that alter your mind.
| taneq wrote:
| In my (admittedly limited) experience there's quite an
| overlap in expertise between the better-informed illicit
| experimenters and the left side of the bell curve for
| psychiatric professionals.
| coderintherye wrote:
| That's fine if you don't trust it and if you want medical
| advice, you should always talk to your primary care
| provider for that advice.
|
| However I work with doctors, and through that have had
| the ability to discuss the site with various medical
| doctors. In general, they have also noted it as a good
| resource. They've also noted there is limited ability for
| them as medical doctors to assess the medical side
| effects of various drugs due to the illegality of them in
| their jurisdictions. Thus, the need for resources such as
| Erowid. If you want your medical doctor to be able to
| give you medical advice about psychedelic drug use then
| help push for continued legal reclassification of and
| access to psychedelics for medical researchers.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| That's OK, I don't trust doctors who lack any first hand
| experience of these substances. I'm deeply skeptical of
| the push to medicalize their administration, given the
| parlous state of that industry.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think there's a lot more nuance than even that. Many
| psychedelics can trigger or exacerbate undesirable mental
| conditions that persist for the rest of your life.
| bozhark wrote:
| Nah, they don't cause undesirable mental conditions that
| persist for the rest of your life. Your "trip" is about
| 6-8 hours on a typical 3.5g dose.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Dude I know people who have had their lifelong
| schizophrenia start at the same time they started using
| hallucinogens like LSD and mushrooms. It's not a
| conspiracy or bullshit. People I have loved have changed
| in ways they couldn't control and was destructive/scary
| for them.
| squirtlebonflow wrote:
| How do you know that it's not the other way around - they
| started using hallucinogens _because_ their schizophrenia
| started and the confusion around a drastic change in
| mental state caused drug seeking behavior?
| empyrrhicist wrote:
| I don't disagree that these substances are known triggers
| for those with predispositions, but be careful with your
| logic - that's exactly the same format as autism/vax
| conspiracy folks use, when in reality the common cause is
| age. Symptoms of autism can start to manifest around the
| time childhood vaccines are being given, just like
| schizophrenia and related conditions manifest in
| teenagers and young adults (also groups known to try
| drugs). In the latter case we do _also_ have evidence
| that psychedelics are associated with increased risk
| /earlier onset, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the
| timing anecdote.
| pillefitz wrote:
| What's your agenda? I seriously don't understand why
| you'd say such things, if HPPD and DP/DR are real.
| shlant wrote:
| please top minimizing the real risks of using
| psychedelics (especially for certain groups of people
| predisposed to mental health issues). You make
| normalizing them harder and you do more damage than if
| you were just honest about it. The war on drugs resulted
| in a lot of lies being spread about these substances.
| Don't do the exact same thing just because it's on the
| other side of the argument.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| That's not what they said, psychedelics can trigger
| preexisting vulnerabilities to mental disorders. A
| psychotic break can do enormous damage.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I would recommend reading up on persistent disassociative
| personality disorders and persistent visual artifacts
| from psychedelics. Both are rare but well documented side
| effects of psychedelic usage.
|
| I personally know someone who has suffered visual
| distortions post trip for 20 years and counting at this
| point.
| indrora wrote:
| they may be interested in this, if they weren't already:
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=44872
| 43
|
| There is a foundation looking to understand why/how this
| happens and what we can do to moderate/manage it:
| https://www.perception.foundation/
| cthalupa wrote:
| As someone who is very much in favor of legalizing
| psychadelics and has enjoyed his experiences with them:
|
| No, there is a lot of strong evidence that psychadelic
| trips can trigger underlying issues such as
| schizophrenia, etc.
|
| However, some portion of these people would have it
| triggered these latent illnesses regardless of the use of
| these substances. The hard to answer question is how many
| people would develop these conditions without the drug
| use, if the drug use significantly accelerated it, etc.
|
| On the subject of HPPD, I am more skeptical. It's very
| poorly understood, and there's been correlation shown for
| just about any sort of psychoactive substance, SSRIs,
| etc. Studies have claimed that anywhere from 5% to 25% of
| people who have taken recreational psychoactive drugs are
| impacted by it. Which, well, I have not done and am not
| qualified to do such a study, but having spoken to
| hundreds of users of psychadelic drugs over several
| decades and never encountering a single person who
| claimed to experience HPPD, it's hard to square up my
| anecdotal experiences with some of the reports.
|
| Something is going on there - there's enough people that
| report the symptoms that I don't believe it's made up or
| anything like that - but it doesn't seem to be nearly as
| simply as "Anyone that does recreational drugs has a
| chance of developing HPPD"
| hoxtrader wrote:
| The risks are that one is in a very vulnerable state
| mentally.
|
| The more popular psychedelics become the more bad actors will
| take advantage of this.
|
| A trip sitter is a great idea in theory but just rarely
| actually happens.
|
| The deepest thing I have learned on psychedelics though is
| that the very idea there are experiences that are "fun" and
| experiences that are "spiritual" is complete nonsense. The
| person sitting alone in a room on a spiritual quest of some
| sort looking down on the person dancing at a rave is an utter
| fool.
| bozhark wrote:
| Caffeine is a psychoactive drug.
| pillefitz wrote:
| And for those that can't metabolize it properly, it causes
| serious issues, from heart problems to chronic sleep
| deprivation to heavy mood swings and depression that can
| last months
| bowsamic wrote:
| How is that relevant?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| As far as the cover photo, I don't think ketamine (a
| replacement for PCP) and MDMA (an analogue of drugs like
| Adderall (amphetamine class)) qualify as psychedelics. It makes
| more sense to classify psychedelics as 5-HT2A partial agonists,
| meaning LSD, psilocybin, DMT and analogs like bufotenin, and
| mescaline, from a pharmacological perspective. See:
|
| (LSD, mescaline, psilocybin)
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756147/
|
| (DMT) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9768567/
|
| Ketamine and MDMA in contrast act through different pathways,
| the former being a dissociative anaesthetic acting via the NMDA
| receptor, and MDMA acting as much via dopamine receptors
| (though unlike other amphetamines, it also increases serotonin
| levels significantly). In popular use, these are so-called
| party drugs, and users often have no idea what they're taking
| (amphetamines and ketamine have been commonly sold as MDMA). I
| don't know why they've been lumped in with true psychedelics so
| frequently, but they're much more likely to be used
| recreationally as a replacement for alcohol, cocaine, etc.
|
| Secondly, I think naive users should be aware that the true
| psychedelics are indeed dangerous if not treated with caution
| and respect, in the same sense that a motorcycle is. Drive a
| motorcycle too fast, bad things happen. Ingesting a large
| amount of psychedelics is similar. There are at least two
| particular dangers: immediately, a psychedelic overdose leaves
| the user ambulatory, so they can end up falling off cliffs,
| walking into traffic, and otherwise oblivious to dangerous
| situations. Secondly, some people have traumatic responses to
| very large doses of psychedelics that can take months to
| recover from (dissociation from reality, paranoia, etc.).
|
| Still, I think these drugs can be immensely beneficial and
| people should be able to access them, much as people should be
| able to drive motorcycles. Perhaps one solution is that they
| should only be supplied in low dosage packaging (aka microdose
| amounts), such that people don't accidentally take large doses
| with the common unfortunate consequences. It's generally not a
| good idea to think of them as 'recreational' either, although
| many people are going to use them that way.
| jokowueu wrote:
| What a weird thing to gatekeep.
|
| What you have mentioned are called classic psychadelics .
|
| Something being a psychadelic has nothing to do with it's
| pathways.
|
| Let's take a look at the definition .
|
| Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose
| primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states
| (known as psychedelic experiences or psychedelic "trips")
| and/or an apparent expansion of consciousness
|
| This fits ketamine perfectly, I have tried many substances
| and ketamine is one of the most powerful substances I have
| tried .
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Prolonged fasting and meditation can generate non-ordinary
| mental states (which you could call psychedelic trips if
| you like) but the mechanism and the effects are not the
| same. When it comes to psychoactive compounds,
| classification matters a lot, at least from a
| pharmacological perspective. For example, MDMA dependency
| is a lot more likely than LSD dependency from an abuse
| perspective as it hits the dopamine reward circuitry in the
| brain, and this is generally true of all the tryptamine-
| class psychedelics.
|
| As far as ketamine, it's an organochlorine compound whose
| regular use is associated with liver and urinary toxicity,
| I can't believe anyone who knows about this would want to
| take it regularly or recreationally.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine
| jokowueu wrote:
| You can't call prolonged fasting or meditation a
| psychadelic because it doesn't fit the the definition
| neither having a abuse potential or a compound that
| causes damage .
|
| The definition exists , if you want to create a new word
| for it you can go ahead .
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Just because they act through different pathways doesn't mean
| they're not psychedelics.
|
| They're not Tryptamines, sure, but they _are_ psychedelic
| even if they act differently from "classical hallucinogens"
| (to borrow a similarly strange term I've read in scientific
| literature).
|
| Salvia is also not a 5-HT2A agonist, does that mean it's not
| a psychedelic?
| cies wrote:
| The categories law has for drugs suck, psychs dont need a new
| category, they simply need to be unscheduled. Like daffodils.
| asimpletune wrote:
| > Happy to talk more about the history of psychedelics.
|
| Do you know anything in the way of a connection between
| psychedelics and the Eleusinian Mysteries?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries
| ttctciyf wrote:
| I'm curious why you're dissatisfied with the organically
| arrived at "folk taxonomic" category: _psychedelics_. Are you
| looking for a new classification in law?
| JadeNB wrote:
| The article specifically refers not just to the cultural, but
| also to the legal and medical, thinking about psychedelics.
| ttctciyf wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > this new landscape demands more than just new laws. It
| also requires a new category for psychedelics. Are they
| recreational drugs? Are they medicines? Are they religious
| sacraments?
|
| I'm asking why we can't just answer this question with
| "They are psychedelics".
| crazygringo wrote:
| Because legally, that's as meaningful as saying "they are
| quooquaquams".
|
| The entire point of categorizing them is to answer
| questions around:
|
| - Should they be sold to take recreationally, like
| tobacco and alcohol? Should there be limits, like tobacco
| packaging and taxes, or rules similar to drunk driving?
|
| - Or should they only be prescribed by doctors for mental
| health reasons, and not allowed recreationally or in
| religious ceremonies?
|
| - Or should there be exceptions for certain religious
| ceremonies as well? Is this open to anyone (so Catholics
| can invent a ceremony) or only ones that have
| traditionally used it? Does it require licensing or
| authorization?
|
| By categorizing them, we come to answers on these
| questions. If they fit into existing categories, we don't
| have to write many new laws except to state the
| categories. Or if we decide they don't fit into existing
| categories, we come up with a new category with its own
| set of answers and new laws to write, but part of this
| whole process is determining if that's necessary or not.
| And even if it is, the name of the label may not be
| "psychadelics" because we realize there's another set of
| non-psychadelic compounds that make sense to be included
| as well (e.g. empathogens like MDMA).
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Because legally, that's as meaningful as saying "they
| are quooquaquams".
|
| I don't see how this is at all equivalent, given that
| "psychedelics" is a well-known term that can be found
| throughout decades of literature and that gibberish word
| you just made up has no attached meaning.
|
| If you're equating random gibberish words to well-known
| words in literature then why does anything have any
| meaning? Why would a new word have meaning?
|
| Regardless, the laws generally don't refer to
| "psychedelics", they refer to specific chemicals by their
| name. There are numerous compounds that would be
| considered psychedelics that are, nevertheless, not
| illegal because they're not covered by any laws
| (including analog acts)
| crazygringo wrote:
| Because the term found through decades of literature
| isn't attached to legal categories, as I explained. It's
| the same way the term "drug" doesn't have much legal
| distinction, as I can't think of any legal commonalities
| spanning coffee, alcohol, Lipitor, cannabis, and heroin.
|
| > _Regardless, the laws... refer to specific chemicals by
| their name._
|
| Not directly, very often. I doubt there's any specific
| law around Lipitor. Rather, drugs are grouped into
| categories and then the laws that permit or restrict them
| are mostly around those categories. Otherwise it would
| all be incredibly redundant (with exceptions for certain
| incredibly common drugs like alcohol). And the question
| here is how to categorize pyschadelics for legal
| purposes. And saying that we just call them psychadelics
| answers as many legal questions as saying we call them
| quooquaquams -- i.e. zero.
| shwaj wrote:
| Why can't "psychedelics" be the name for the category?
| seabird wrote:
| Because that's not how controlled substances are grouped
| and regulated, and for good reason.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Then maybe it's the controlled substance administration
| that's wrong. Seriously, what level of hubris does it
| take to think that natural substances like psilocybin
| mushrooms which have existed for millions of years must
| be brought under the control of a polity's legislature?
| It's like declaring sharks or snakes illegal because they
| give some people nightmares. Future generations will
| laugh in disbelief at this idiocy.
| scns wrote:
| How did drugs become illegal? Check out the documentary
| series Hooked. Short answer: Racism and corruption.
|
| [addendum]
|
| Marijuana and Methamphetamine:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvGtn8RzF0U&list=PL2-GCln
| 73g...
|
| Ecstasy, LSD & the Raves:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3id6j6nJmlo&list=PL2-GCln
| 73g...
|
| Opium, Morphine and Heroin:
|
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ocqwm
| seabird wrote:
| I don't know what you're getting at here. We're not
| talking about values. We're talking about why the word
| "psychedelics" is a worthless term as far as the law is
| concerned.
|
| From a values standpoint, I don't see how it would be
| idiotic to schedule truly dangerous drugs like 25i-NBOMe
| more strictly than psilocybin or LSD.
| krispyfi wrote:
| 25i-NBOMe isn't "truly dangerous". It's only dangerous if
| mistaken for LSD and dosed carelessly, so rather than
| scheduling it more strictly, there should be strict
| requirements for accurate labeling and consistent dosing,
| like every other drug.
| seabird wrote:
| It is straight up dangerous. 5x a common dose of _< 1mg_
| can kill you. Nobody that can actually execute on
| properly dosing it will expose themselves to the
| liability of doing so.
|
| Drugs are cool and interesting, go ahead and do them, but
| trying to pretend that something like 25i-NBOMe is
| something that Joe Average will safely deal with is,
| frankly, pretty fucking stupid. This conversation is
| constantly approached with this idea that everybody is a
| reasonable, informed person that is fully educated on the
| risks, but that's just not how this works.
| squirtlebonflow wrote:
| Well, that's an interesting idea. 20x a common dose of
| acetaminophen, an extremely pervasive, legal, over the
| counter painkiller, can kill you. Less can kill a child.
| Lots of drugs contain it, such as over the counter cough
| medicine.
|
| People legitimately die or become seriously ill every
| year because they don't know this.
|
| Granted, 5x is a lot different than 20x especially when a
| drug is taken for recreation rather than necessity. I've
| never done 25i-NBOMe, but it's my understanding that it's
| easy to overdose because a method of administration is
| blotter paper and people think they're taking LSD.
|
| In our current world, when you get prescription drugs for
| the first time, you are provided with information about
| risks. Over the counter medicine, you aren't.
|
| In my ideal world, if you wanted to do a recreational
| drug and it had risks like this, you'd have to complete a
| drug education course and obtain a prescription, you'd be
| provided with phone numbers for services like overdosing
| or mental health, specific to the drugs you're planning
| on doing, and dosage would be easy because medical
| professionals are doing it in a lab before they sell it
| to you.
|
| The average Joe would much rather do drugs that they know
| are manufactured correctly, not adulterated or cut with
| other substances, where the dose is measured accurately,
| and where if something goes wrong they have a
| professional to help them, even if it means they have to
| pay a bit more than the black market - which will surely
| still exist.
|
| And if someone goes through the black market and does
| because they did a drug that is now legal, and they
| didn't know the correct dose? Sad, but that's on them
| seabird wrote:
| Acetaminophen has a poor safety profile and I wish they
| would take it off the market, and that's a drug where the
| danger is in taking 10+ fairly large capsules of it
| instead of 1. The difference between normal 25i-NBOMe
| usage and fatal usage can be as small as putting a 1x1cm
| piece of paper in your mouth vs putting a 1x3cm piece of
| paper in your mouth.
|
| I agree with your ideal world. The point of my original
| comment was that making no distinction between something
| like 25i-NBOMe and something like LSD, calling them
| psychedelics, and regulating them as such just isn't a
| good idea. I am _not_ claiming that you should go to jail
| for having or using them.
| krispyfi wrote:
| Nobody that can actually execute on properly dosing it
| will expose themselves to the liability of doing so.
|
| Nobody? Um, I'm right here? I bought a 0.1ml pipette back
| in the day for the precise purpose of safely dosing
| 25X-NBOMes volumetrically, rather than by mass.
|
| And I'm not the only one. Hamilton Morris[0],
| Nervewing[1], and many others on forums such as
| Bluelight[2] write about their positive 25X-NBOMe
| experiences. trying to pretend that
| something like 25i-NBOMe is something that Joe Average
| will safely deal with
|
| Of course it's dangerous for Joe Average to use NBOMes.
| It's also dangerous for Joe Average to buy a dodgy
| parachute off of the dark web and do amateur skydiving.
| That doesn't mean we should ban skydiving and put Joe
| (and capable skydivers!) in prison. Skydiving is actually
| quite "safe", with fewer than 8 fatalities per million
| jumps, but I put "safe" in quotes, because it is not
| skydiving that is inherently safe or dangerous, but
| rather it is the way that skydiving has been incorporated
| into society to manage its risks that is safe.
|
| I take issue with the entire punitive premise of this
| discussion, namely, that substances should be placed on a
| continuum from safe to dangerous, or good to bad, or
| "soft" to "hard", so that we can determine how harshly to
| punish people who possess them. If anything, drugs should
| be regulated, not prohibited, and they should be
| categorized in such a way as to make clear the risks they
| present and how to mitigate them. Under such a scheme,
| you wouldn't even need to ban anything, because why would
| Joe Average futz around with something obscure like
| 25I-NBOMe when familiar LSD is available from the corner
| smart shop along with a pamphlet explaining how to use it
| properly? Why does everyone's mind immediately leap to a
| carceral solution?
|
| [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/researchchemicals/comments/v
| 1oz4j/h... [1]
| https://nervewing.blogspot.com/2014/05/25c-nbome.html [2]
| https://bluelight.org/xf/threads/the-big-dandy-25i-nbome-
| thr...
| seabird wrote:
| My point on liability isn't about your personal tolerance
| for risk and confidence in your own work on a n=1 scale,
| it's about whether or not you would be comfortable doing
| that work for thousands of other people with the
| understanding that a very minor fuck up results in
| somebody being dead.
|
| To be clear, I'm with you on the idea that all drugs
| should be legal. I don't believe in scheduling drugs to
| determine sentencing. I do believe in scheduling drugs
| according to the odds that Joe Schmoe will bungle the
| usage of them, in an attempt to steer people who aren't
| doing a an appropriate amount of research toward largely
| physiologically safe/well understood options.
| ttctciyf wrote:
| So, short answer, "yes a legal category is what's being
| asked for".
|
| Got it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is there a downside to totally deregulating them?
| ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
| Ocean Gate
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is there a downside to deregulating them? (Like
| supplements.)
| lbotos wrote:
| Possibly more psychotic episodes from more folks who took
| too much? (I'm pro de-criminalization, not sure if I'm
| all the way to deregulation)
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Administrators stop trying to control every aspect of
| people's lives challenge 2023
| bozhark wrote:
| There is not licensing or authorization for religion.
|
| There is no application for approval required to be a
| "church", ie: religion.
|
| Thinking there could be some "authority" for a religious
| institution's practices is beyond measure.
| crazygringo wrote:
| There absolutely is both for tax purposes as well as for
| legal religious exemptions.
|
| You can't just arbitrarily call your house a church to
| avoid paying property taxes. Government authorities have
| to make decisions all the time over what they deem to be
| a legitimate religious organization.
|
| You obviously don't need a license or authorization to
| engage in otherwise legal religious practice, but as soon
| as you want legal exemptions, the government most
| certainly has a say. And the ritual consumption of
| otherwise illegal drugs couldn't be a more perfect
| example.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> You obviously don 't need a license or authorization
| to engage in otherwise legal religious practice_
|
| by this logic, the government could make illegal any
| other religious practice (in addition to psychedelic
| usage), because then the practice isn't "otherwise legal"
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| Many drugs are already all of those.
|
| Opioids are both recreational drugs and medicines.
|
| Peyote is a recreational drug and religious sacrament.
|
| This seems to ignore this fact.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| In my country, LSD, mescaline, magic mushrooms, and DMT, are
| class A controlled substances, same as methamphetamine,
| cocaine, heroin and fentanyl.
|
| Class A being drugs that pose a "very high risk of harm".
| Which, you know, if I could post comments on our legislation,
| I'd be adding a bunch of "[citation needed]"s in that list of
| substances that apparently have a very high risk of harm.
|
| And like other jurisdictions, there's some real bloody
| oddities in the law in this area.
|
| E.g., a man was charged for importing 18kg of DMT when he
| ordered 18kg of Mimosa tenuiflora root bark online, as the
| bark isn't explicitly handled in law as a prohibited plant
| like Coca leaf (class C, far lower severity of sentencing)
| and Papaver somniferum (class B), so it falls through to the
| default of "any substance containing a class A controlled
| substance is also class A".
|
| So he could get life in prison, like he imported 18kg of
| fentanyl.
|
| Hopefully the sentencing judge is reasonable, but the fact
| that he's facing the same penalty for 18kg of bark that
| contains about 1 - 2% DMT as you would for importing enough
| fentanyl to kill 9 million people shows that our law is a bit
| of an ass.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| This is the same way that one weighs LSD that is on paper,
| unfortunately. Thus a lot of paper with very little LSD on
| it is worse than a little bit of paper with a lot of LSD on
| it.
| funnymony wrote:
| Could you elaborate? Why is it so?
| [deleted]
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Supreme court ruled
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/01/2
| 3/s...
| [deleted]
| codetrotter wrote:
| Seems that at least parts of the US government has
| realised that carrier medium weight should not be used
| for LSD.
|
| > In the case of LSD on a carrier medium (e.g., a sheet
| of blotter paper), do not use the weight of the
| LSD/carrier medium. Instead, treat each dose of LSD on
| the carrier medium as equal to 0.4 mg of LSD for the
| purposes of the Drug Quantity Table.
|
| https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/amendment/488
| tl_donson wrote:
| 400 mg per dose is still probably overestimating by quite
| a bit.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| huh, ok, it seems like things have changed some time in
| the last 27 years https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/
| politics/1996/01/23/s...
| codetrotter wrote:
| > brushed aside a U.S. Sentencing Commission rule
| establishing a uniform presumptive weight of 0.4
| milligrams for all doses of LSD, regardless of the
| carrier.
|
| Oof :(
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yeah, so now I wonder which it is. Of course it will also
| depend on the state I guess.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| We had/have case back home in our rather primitive country
| re this, where former professional athlete started having
| joint issues in later age. He started growing hemp/weed for
| his own use, I guess he crossed 0.7% threshold for THC. He
| made ointments and tinctures for him, and you can't do that
| with 1 plant, not for serious use during whole year.
|
| They caught him, and they are trying him like some mob
| kingpin, facing decades in jail and IIRC he got such
| sentence. EU country. Former olympic representant of our
| country, self medicating since current medicine can't treat
| him well enough.
|
| Kill a person in cold blood, rape a child or two and you
| get maybe 1/3rd of that sentence. Fuck that place, never
| coming back.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| But yet no name-and-shame for the country?
| andromeduck wrote:
| Doesn't DMT also naturally exist? So lidke any time you buy
| a live anim you're buying DMT.
| spurgu wrote:
| It exists in many different plants and also in a few
| animals, for example the Colorado River toad.
| asah wrote:
| He was convicted and sentenced with 7 months home
| detention.
|
| https://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/editors-
| picks/87...
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Nicely done judge.
|
| But it's still ridiculous that he pleaded guilty to a
| charge of importing 18kg of DMT, when the results of
| testing the 18kg of bark he imported were that the "The
| bark contained 0.57 per cent of DMT."
|
| So, about 103 grams of DMT, assuming 100% efficiency in
| extracting it.
| jliptzin wrote:
| He has plenty of time at home now to extract that DMT
| efficiently.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| This is how the US does drug busts. When the cops bust a
| weed grow operation, they weight the entire plant root
| ball and all even if its entirely immature and lacks buds
| at this stage of growth.
| trollied wrote:
| Have you ever tried psychedelics yourself?
| kodah wrote:
| Would it not be more efficient to challenge the evidence behind
| current scheduling, much less the standards used in scheduling?
| Trying to work around a system built by corrupt people is a bit
| like ignoring pests eating your garden and just making a new
| garden hoping they won't infest that too.
| NtochkaNzvanova wrote:
| California and other states already showed with marijuana
| that if you have enough local popular support, you can
| legalize drugs and the feds will do nothing. This is
| especially true right now with Democrats in control of the
| DoJ. In fact, if you look at cities like San Francisco, all
| drugs are already de facto decriminalized. CA could legalize
| LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, etc. tomorrow.
| kodah wrote:
| I live in Oregon, all drugs already are decriminalized.
| That doesn't solve a littany of problems and is progress,
| but albeit with short term thinking. Passing through states
| that consider what you can buy for $20 at a mom and pop
| shop a felony is bit more than just problematic. States
| passing laws relieves their citizens of pressure, but we
| still need to move drugs entirely to a states right or we
| need to correct the federal record.
|
| State laws also marginalize people who are bound to federal
| services eg: veterans using the VA. A veteran cannot get
| ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, or LSD based treatments or
| they'll be confused as an addict and dropped from VA plans.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Do you have any data on the level of criminality of those on
| psychedelics versus a control group?
| taneq wrote:
| I'd imagine technically it's 100% if you're in a district
| where possession is criminalized.
| nborwankar wrote:
| To properly categorize these drugs we need to _expand our
| thinking_. Hmmm :-)
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