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Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

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

#111

Post by mock-possum »

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…

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.

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

#112

Post by bryanrasmussen »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #71
ttctciyf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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, the…

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.

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

#113

Post by s1artibartfast »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #99
s1artibartfast wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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 con…

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.

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

#114

Post by birdyrooster »

bozhark wrote: post #52
s1artibartfast wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#115

Post by otherme123 »

emptysongglass wrote: post #58
otherme123 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deat…

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 m…

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.

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

#116

Post by jokowueu »

photochemsyn wrote: post #101
jokowueu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

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…

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 .

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

#117

Post by emptysongglass »

otherme123 wrote: post #115
emptysongglass wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

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 cur…

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.

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #112
EdwardDiego wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, the…

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.

[deleted]

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

#119

Post by asah »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #71
ttctciyf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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, the…

He was convicted and sentenced with 7 months home detention.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/editors-picks/87...

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

#120

Post by funnymony »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #112
EdwardDiego wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, the…

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.

Could you elaborate? Why is it so?
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