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Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#81

Post by coderintherye »

jasonhansel wrote: post #67
coderintherye wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. How…

They are not doctors. I would not trust that website as a source of medical advice.

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.

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#82

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

jokoon wrote: post #56

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.

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.

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#83

Post by TaylorAlexander »

newacct3 wrote: post #75
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #19

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…

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?

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.

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#84

Post by TaylorAlexander »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #38
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #19

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…

> 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 res…

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.

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#85

Post by [deleted] »

slibhb wrote: post #39
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #19

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…

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 psychedeli…

[deleted]

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#86

Post by TaylorAlexander »

jagaerglad wrote: post #22
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #19

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…

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 effe…

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.

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#87

Post by lbotos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63
crazygringo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Is there a downside to deregulating them? (Like supplements.)

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)

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#88

Post by anigbrowl »

crazygringo wrote: post #14
ttctciyf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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 re…

Administrators stop trying to control every aspect of people's lives challenge 2023

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#89

Post by anigbrowl »

seabird wrote: post #78
shwaj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t “psychedelics” be the name for the category?

Because that's not how controlled substances are grouped and regulated, and for good reason.

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.

Re: Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

#90

Post by anigbrowl »

jasonhansel wrote: post #67
coderintherye wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. How…

They are not doctors. I would not trust that website as a source of medical advice.

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.
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