Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo • Hacker News Board

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#31

Post by wheels » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 9:19 AM UTC

maaku wrote: post #23

sp332 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't most recreational drugs addictive and destructive? It's not too hard to understand why there's a stigma.

Primarily just those which result in dopamine production are addictive. Psychedelic drugs do not, and are generally not addictive.

That's false, actually. The most dangerous additive things are generally GABA agonists (alcohol, GHB, etc.) and things that futz with opioid receptors (heroine, etc.). Those classes of drugs produce physical dependance and in extreme cases withdrawal can be fatal.

Dependence on drugs that mess with the dopamine system (nicotine, caffeine, amphetamines, cocaine, etc.) is almost completely psychological. The physical withdrawal symptoms are slight in comparison to the category above.

Psychedelic drugs mostly mess with the serotonin system, which has a lower (but non-zero) propensity for producing psychological addiction, owing largely to the fact that the tolerance curve is very steep and it takes the brain a few days to reset.

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#32

Post by mannicken » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:23 AM UTC

mannicken wrote: post #19

sp332 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, so using (e.g.) oxycodone recreationally is a bad use, and is thus stigmatized.

If a bunch of assholes can't control their habits and OD or start stealing for fixes, why should everyone else suffer? It's not as addictive as you think, and I feel like some people use demonization of drugs to excuse their own fuck ups. It's just so easy to blame everything on a drug, isn't it?

Yeah, you know what, I take it back. It's not the addicts who are assholes, it's our lovely government.

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#33

Post by resdirector » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:32 AM UTC

A little off-topic but...

This is a very good 60s psychedelic radio station: http://www.techwebsound.com/. Apart from playing very good 60s music, it has a plays (somewhat ironically) a lot of archive recordings of government warnings against LSD, mushrooms and other psychedelic drugs.

Interesting to listen to the formings of society's current attitudes towards drugs.

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#34

Post by daimyoyo » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:58 AM UTC

Steve Jobs has said in interviews that his taking LSD as a youth was a life changing experience for him. I am very much in favor of restarting clinical trials as long as it's not abused. I think there might be great potential there and as long as we continue to stigmatize it, we will miss out on any knowledge we could gain from studying it. And even if it turns out to have no medicinal value at all, at least we'd know, rather than treating psychoactive drugs like poison. I mean, we have drugs now for treating fatigue in people who work long and irregular hours, why can't we at least give these compounds a real shot at proving whether or not they have value?

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#35

Post by Retric » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 12:03 PM UTC

pygy_ wrote: post #30

profquail wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misinterpreted the sentence you quoted -- cluster headaches can be a common form of chronic headache, whilst being rare in the general population. That is, people suffering from chronic headaches are rare in the general population but those who are, are likely suffering from cluster headaches.

Some facts about headaches: Migraine has a prevalence between 10 and 20%. The chronology of migraine and cluster headache differs, but they are both chronic issues. Untreated migraine attacks last several hours and recur ususally at least once per month. ~10% of Migraine sufferer end up abusing pain killers, which increases the attack frequency and leaves them with a permanent, milder background headache. Cluster att…

There is a wide range of "Migraine" with the most common case being relatively mild. Migraine headaches can be dull or severe because the term refers to the symptoms not the severity.

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#36

Post by rms » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 12:21 PM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #11

sp332 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, so using (e.g.) oxycodone recreationally is a bad use, and is thus stigmatized.

Why do you say that using oxycodone recreationally is bad?

It depends on the meaning of the word bad.

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#37

Post by sp332 » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 1:31 PM UTC

mannicken wrote: post #19

sp332 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, so using (e.g.) oxycodone recreationally is a bad use, and is thus stigmatized.

If a bunch of assholes can't control their habits and OD or start stealing for fixes, why should everyone else suffer? It's not as addictive as you think, and I feel like some people use demonization of drugs to excuse their own fuck ups. It's just so easy to blame everything on a drug, isn't it?

What the fuck? People destroy their lives for another hit. People I know have done that. Addiction is not the same thing as a habit. It is much more addictive than you think.

If you can find me one junkie who stood on principle and quit cold turkey just because they ran out of money, I will seriously reconsider my position. But I know you can't, because that's not how addiction works.

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#38

Post by sp332 » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 1:37 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #6

hsmyers wrote: post #4

I have never understood the mechanics of 'drug is bad if use equal entertainment'. It will be interesting to see if the release of this information and the refereed to thaw in the taboo will lead anywhere...

Aren't most recreational drugs addictive and destructive? It's not too hard to understand why there's a stigma.

Wow, that's a lot of downvotes and only one counter-point. What sorts of recreational drugs are not addictive? And what sorts of drugs will not mess you up when taken in "recreational" dosages?

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#39

Post by JonnieCache » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 1:46 PM UTC

Rick Doblin, the director of the multidisciplinary Association or Psychedelic Studies did a talk at google, which you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwAGkGpv6Ss

Mainstreaming Psychedelics: From FDA to Harvard to Burning Man

Re: Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo

#40

Post by stef25 » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 1:53 PM UTC

baconface wrote: post #10

Regardless of how effective drugs like LSD and psilocybin are, they make it difficult to maintain traditional societal hierarchies of power and control and thus will be stamped out.

Not necessarily. I get how it makes you question authority and generally see life in a different light, but it doesn't exactly do so in a way that it would lead to society breaking down. The long term effects are manifested more internally than externally IMHO.