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Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

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Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#111

I have been partaking in them for the majority of my adult life. Looking at this data I’m surprised the number is not higher - 8%. My own impression is that it’s taking so long because even people familiar with them, like me, don’t actually reach for them all that often. They’re not habit forming. And talking about psychedelic experiences is a bit like talking about your dreams - it’s boring and personal.

The "in the past year" part may be doing a lot of heavy lifting there. A lot of people I know have done psychedelics, but outside of college students, most of them partake very rarely.

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#112
post #98
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> , but it also feels like it's being pumped way too hard as curing basically everything with little discussion of the side effects In every HN drug discussion someone always pops up with some claim like this "curing basically everything" and then when askeded to justify it, they go quiet. Informative discussion this isn't, it resembles an anti-drugs agenda being pushed (which in my mind is just as stupid as a pro-dr…

I'm not sure how you can read my entire comment and think it resembles anti-drug talk (in the colloquial sense). I would most closely classify it as a warning about pharma in general - both the fads that pop up and the overmarketing that companies like to do (which also affects how people talk about it). I'm not talking about the discussion on HN specifically. I'm also talking about all the startups trying to market…

Only 8% of people have used them in the last year. The portion of the population that have ever used psychedelics is necessarily greater than that, and given the fact that psychedelics aren't nearly as habit forming as other drugs, that number could be substantially higher.

I can't find up-to-date lifetime use rate information for psychedelics, but as of 2013 ~10% of the population had used psychedelics in their lifetime, and that was when the last-year usage was less than 4%.

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#114

When we typically speak of "drug (ab)use", we have in mind drug use that frustrates the exercise of reason or some other faculties and their use in accordance with reason in one way or another. Alcohol, for instance, taken in small amounts is fine because in small amounts, it have a relaxing effect that causes no harm and does not frustrate the exercise of reason. Indeed, if you're experiencing distress and anxiety,…

Your logic doesn't follow. Even if we entertain your (wildly baseless) assertions that substance use impairs your rational abilities to the point of muddying your ability to differentiate between right and wrong, it does not follow that that makes them wrong: plenty of people are perfectly happy to do evil unimpaired, just look at the billionaire class, or the right wing. If someone had a predilection towards evil acts, then a muddying of their perception of right and wrong would be a good thing, as they could just as easily be swayed to inadvertent good as a person predisposed to good could be swayed to unintended evil.

Your argument also relies on a curious, self-contradictory framing of ethics. Are acts evil in of themselves, or are they evil because of their consequences? Arguing that the frustration of one's rational faculties is evil because it increases their likelihood of committing other evil acts asserts a consequentialist framing, but you then proceed to vilify the act in of itself, in isolation from any further actions. If it's evil because it could lead to evil acts, then it shouldn't be evil if the effects are weathered in isolation from potential victims. If it's evil in of itself, then it can't be argued to be such due to its potential consequences.

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said "a psychedelics deficiency won't kill you unlike insulin". Deficiency, I said. So why are you talking about overdose. Obviously an overdose of anything will kill you, including water, so what was your point.

> Deficiency, I said. So why are you talking about overdose. ...I was trying to add to your point because you were basically saying something along the lines of "there is no condition that requires someone to take psychedelics" and I wanted to add "plus taking psychedelics can be risky because it's easy to overdose" (which it absolutely is if you don't get the product you ordered, which is unfortunately quite common)…

> you were basically saying something along the lines of "there is no condition that requires someone to take psychedelics"

Not that I was saying that but ok, is there one?

Edit: I'm sorry, this conversation has just gone in a very odd way and I don't know how or why. Pretty sure we got wires crossed again. Anyways, no offence.

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deficiency, I said. So why are you talking about overdose. ...I was trying to add to your point because you were basically saying something along the lines of "there is no condition that requires someone to take psychedelics" and I wanted to add "plus taking psychedelics can be risky because it's easy to overdose" (which it absolutely is if you don't get the product you ordered, which is unfortunately quite common)…

> you were basically saying something along the lines of "there is no condition that requires someone to take psychedelics" Not that I was saying that but ok, is there one? Edit: I'm sorry, this conversation has just gone in a very odd way and I don't know how or why. Pretty sure we got wires crossed again. Anyways, no offence.

> Not that I was saying that but ok, is there one?

no, I was trying to agree with you.

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#117

They're not as easy to confidently and safely get as weed or coke. The first time you do acid you get a little tab that could be anything. This is probably also the reason (I guess) shrooms are more popular than acid - you can grow them and you can see that they are literal mushrooms, rather than some mysterious chemical substance made by your friend's boyfriend's cousin's roommate.

Coke has a reputation of being commonly cut with other substances, including fentanyl which is obviously very dangerous. This varies majorly by location, places where coke is cheaper and more available, it's less likely to be cut.

Weed is mostly safe, but in some places there's been synthetic cannabinoids sprayed on buds and sold as K2, Spice, etc. and that has some dangerous and unpredictable side effects. Again this varies by location. Weed is also getting much stronger than it used to be.

LSD can a bit unpredictable, dosage is really important, and in some cases NBOMe are sold as LSD. NBOMEe's are relatively new, it is a group of synthetic stimulant and hallucinogen substances and can be particularly dangerous when it's not expected.

Mushrooms are probably the safest of the lot if taken with some preparation, dosage is important and so is set and setting.

I think if these substances were decriminalized and regulated, and a harm-reduction approach to education were taken for those most at risk (e.g. Festival goers, teenagers and young adults, clubbers, etc.), a lot of the dangers around their use could be minimised, and public funds could/should be appropriated towards health and education.

Interestingly when people actually get their drugs tested, if it's not what they expected it to be, a good number of people will throw them out. There's some really interesting results from canTEST, a fixed-site drug testing service being trialed in Canberra, Australia.

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#118
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I get a source on that last claim? The only real long term dangers of psychedelics would be impaired driving while under the influence (obviously) and increased likelyhood of psychosis if you were already predisposed to schizophrenia or bipolar. "Dangerous to a stable mindset" what does that even mean? Is that supposed to sound scientific?

Is it not? Psychedelics are being tested for treating PTSD. What is chronic PTSD other than a stable mindset? The point of psychedelic treatment being to destabilize an unwanted mindset.

I took this as a tongue-in-cheek remark akin to "dead patients are stable" - the implication being of course that "stable" doesn't mean "good" or "healthy".

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#119
post #10
post #5

“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we…

Even the popularization of the latin name Marijuana (Mary Jane) was to associate cannabis with latin American immigrants. In Spanish it's mostly called marihuana or mariguana.

Where exactly do people say Mariguana? Not in Mexico. If you over-pronounce Spanish the J catches in your throat a bit, but it's still an H sound.

Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

#120
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Marijuana pronounced like "marihuana"?

In Spanish? Not at all. The J has a very strong sound.

There is considerable regional and subcultural variation, but, even when pronounced strongly its not /g/.
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