Live data from Hacker News

The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

wired.com

81–90 of 200 posts

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#81
post #68
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I may not be someone you want to be for specific reasons relating to our individuality, I am a long time psych user and I'm demographically and overall culturally someone that is presented as desirable to be. I'm in a reasonably high income percentile, I lack unsecured debt, I'm happily married, I have a diverse social circle and several personal hobbies, I stay physically active, and I enjoy intellectual pursu…

I know alcoholics who are well to do, out of debt, happily married, and have a diverse social circle and several personal hobbies, get exercise, and enjoy thinking. None of that shows the merits of alcoholism. I can't speak for the person you're replying to, but I could guess that it's your drug addiction that they have no desire to emulate. Addicts insisting that their addiction isn't one is cliché for a reason.

High frequency of use is a necessary condition for addiction.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I publicly, to my peer group at least, state I have enjoyed benefits of psychedelic drugs every five or ten years, I am pretty sure I have my shit together compared to most people. That being said i know the people you are talking about, but they in my experience use drugs much more frequently. Multiple times a year, and regularly also smoke weed etc. Obviously biased when talking about myself, but I think you can sp…

35 years of dealing with friends and family addiction issues. They all believe it doesn’t affect them negativity, that people can’t tell. They are all wrong. We can see the changes in them. Good or bad. The ones that make an effort to get off for awhile are usually shocked when they realize how they were being affected. I have never seen positive long term affects in anyone of them. Even though they all claim otherwi…

[deleted]

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#83
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Talk about missing the forest from the trees. The whole transformative experience is the "trip" itself. " I couldn't agree more. In fact, the trip itself is not a nice side effect, it's the precondition to get measurable, long-term positive changes.

>long-term positive changes. Proponents frequently mention things like this, yet _no one_ who publicly admits to psych use is someone I want to be. All the people I've ever met, and friends who didn't but started down that road, aren't "all there" anymore. They'll preach day and night about the "benefits", but from the outside looking in it's obviously a coping mechanism.

Are they happy? (Are you happy?)

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#84
post #10

I recently did LSD. It wasn't my first encounter with psychedelics but none have done what LSD did. I have a good bit of trauma that I'd attempted to work through throughout my life. The thing is, many of those things are settled. I cannot change them, I've course corrected my life away from my actions being influenced by these things, and on the exterior I think most people would find me well adapted. I was pretty m…

How big of a dose?

It was about a single tab. Not enough to have any color blending or anything like that.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#86
post #68
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I may not be someone you want to be for specific reasons relating to our individuality, I am a long time psych user and I'm demographically and overall culturally someone that is presented as desirable to be. I'm in a reasonably high income percentile, I lack unsecured debt, I'm happily married, I have a diverse social circle and several personal hobbies, I stay physically active, and I enjoy intellectual pursu…

I know alcoholics who are well to do, out of debt, happily married, and have a diverse social circle and several personal hobbies, get exercise, and enjoy thinking. None of that shows the merits of alcoholism. I can't speak for the person you're replying to, but I could guess that it's your drug addiction that they have no desire to emulate. Addicts insisting that their addiction isn't one is cliché for a reason.

Setting aside the hilarious disrespect of assuming that I'm a drug addict from single comment on the internet, you are capable of realizing that taking issue with people who use a drug only because of the mental and social association you have of people who use the drug is a super tight loop of circular logic, aren't you?

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#87
post #5

There was an NYT article not too long ago whose entire point is that "true" psychedelic drugs are too dangerous to go mainstream, but isolated chemical compounds that provide some of the chemical effects of LSD / Mushrooms / Ketamine without the "trip" were a much better way to go. The reasoning was that they could engineer a way to chemically induce neuroplastic change in the brain without the liability of visual or…

i have tried all the psychadelics that dont provide "trips" . all of them were complete failures yet they show effects on mice for some reason but when did that ever matter.

The only interesting one that was impressive was tabernanthalog but even though it didn't produce a twitch response in mice it clearly had a psychadelic effect

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I publicly, to my peer group at least, state I have enjoyed benefits of psychedelic drugs every five or ten years, I am pretty sure I have my shit together compared to most people. That being said i know the people you are talking about, but they in my experience use drugs much more frequently. Multiple times a year, and regularly also smoke weed etc. Obviously biased when talking about myself, but I think you can sp…

35 years of dealing with friends and family addiction issues. They all believe it doesn’t affect them negativity, that people can’t tell. They are all wrong. We can see the changes in them. Good or bad. The ones that make an effort to get off for awhile are usually shocked when they realize how they were being affected. I have never seen positive long term affects in anyone of them. Even though they all claim otherwi…

> They all believe it doesn’t affect them negativity, that people can’t tell.

> They are all wrong. We can see the changes in them. Good or bad.

Well the post you replied to didn't address being able to tell.

> The ones that make an effort to get off for awhile are usually shocked when they realize how they were being affected.

5 years is a while, surely?

> I have never seen positive long term affects in anyone of them. Even though they all claim otherwise.

Do they still claim that after 5 years of non-use?

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#89
post #77

I have a friend who has severe depression, including self harm and thoughts of suicide. So far guided meditation sessions and antidepressants have had little effect. I have read that some illicit drugs can be effective in treating depression, even after just one or two uses. Can anyone suggest what might be the best option out of ketamine, shrooms, LSD or MDMA?

Speaking very broadly, ketamine has shown positive effects on depression, MDMA on PTSD, and psychedelics on grief and to some extent anxiety. So it really depends on what your friend is dealing with in their personal life.

By "psychedelics" do you mean psilocybin? As Ketamine and MDMA are also both psychedelic

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#90
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Talk about missing the forest from the trees. The whole transformative experience is the "trip" itself. " I couldn't agree more. In fact, the trip itself is not a nice side effect, it's the precondition to get measurable, long-term positive changes.

>long-term positive changes. Proponents frequently mention things like this, yet _no one_ who publicly admits to psych use is someone I want to be. All the people I've ever met, and friends who didn't but started down that road, aren't "all there" anymore. They'll preach day and night about the "benefits", but from the outside looking in it's obviously a coping mechanism.

OTOH I think you'd be surprised at how many people you know in your daily life probably are taking psychedelics these days, especially on the west coast.
Post reply on HN