Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon • Hacker News Board

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#211

Post by amanaplanacanal » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

Podgajski wrote: post #133

swalling wrote: post #3

What's missing from this article is that people are reaching for this because the standard medical treatment for these disorders, SSRIs, are pretty terrible. In the mild case, the common side effects are blunting of your emotions and sexual dysfunction. So you don't have panic attacks, but you live in a gray fog and your relationships suffer. In the worst case, they cause suicidal ideation. Psychedelics also have psy…

Psilocybin works in sort of the same way as SSRI. SSRIs will keep around the serotonin we make, but the problem is, if we’re not making enough serotonin in the first place they won’t be effective. Psilocybin on the other hand acts kind of like the serotonin molecule itself. It attaches to most of the serotonin receptors, including the two receptor. The reason why it works for so long is you get such a huge and strong…

I believe that we are pretty sure that serotonin has nothing to do with how SSRIs alleviate depression, despite the name.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#212

Post by ensignavenger » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

kawhah wrote: post #185

ensignavenger wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some of those things do sound silly... but they are not at all what most Christians believe.

Which part of the following is not believed by most Christians? > That God kinda-became human to "sacrifice" himself (with no loss, got up 3 days later to live forever, nothing was sacrificed) in order to forgive the sins of people, but only if they believe it

All of it? Specifically, the 'kind-of' - most Christians beleive Jesus was fully human/mortal. 'with no loss'- most Christians beleive Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice, not only his mortal life, bit also profound and incomphrensible suffering (don't forget the events in Gethsemane, not just at the hands of the Sanhedrin and the Romans). Also his sacrifice went far beyond forgiving sins of beleivers. It included the promise of eventual resurection for for everyone, not just beleivers. (Details can vary among sects as well as individual persons as to the full impact of Christs sacrifice and resurection on unbeleivers, but the vast majority do beleive that there are effects for everyone, regardless of belief in this life or the next).

Christianity and its doctines are much deeper and richer on these topics than this characature would imply.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#213

Post by explaininjs » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

hellweaver666 wrote: post #181

explaininjs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking me to summarize years of reflection and several near-death experiences into an internet message board comment, but I'll try to scrape the surface. In short, I had lost all faith in the "official narrative" of creation/existence/whatever as taught in schools/society/etc. that I had grown up believing (growing up I'd have called myself atheist, then agnostic). You might call this an anti-science view, but…

Sounds to me like you're still hallucinating.

Get behind me, hellweaver! For it is written: Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

(For those following along, this is a cute and fun example of Scripture being used to rebuke attempts to shake the foundation. The forces that be typically aren't so overt.)

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#214

Post by macNchz » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

kawhah wrote: post #128

acchow wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SSRIs, are pretty terrible They're terrible for some people, but they work well for others. I don't think they should automatically be disregarded. > In the worst case, they cause suicidal ideation Is this actually true? My understanding is that people in severe depression can have suicidal ideation but not actually be able to put in the effort/energy needed to go through with it. SSRIs initially give you a little…

> Is this actually true? GlaxoSmithKline paid the Department of Justice $3 billion for covering up evidence of this while promoting their SSRI to under-18s. They paid the fine in 2012, 11 years ago. The medical trial was done in 1994-1998. In 2003, the (UK medicines regulator) MHRA obtained full clinical data from Glaxo, and based on that data forming robust evidence of significant increase in suicidality, both the M…

Here’s a link with more info on this from the Justice Department: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/glaxosmithkline-plead-guilty-...

Sometimes I feel foolish for being skeptical about safety claims for food additives/cosmetics/pharmaceuticals/etc, then other times it feels completely rational.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#215

Post by 2devnull » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC

explaininjs wrote: post #176

psiops wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculing is one thing. Waging holy war, murdering, burning and dehumanizing is unfortunately a common reaction to differing viewpoints among religious folk.

Yes, but also: Waging war, murdering, burning and dehumanizing is unfortunately a common reaction to differing viewpoints among folk.

And I would add, the world is more peaceful and loving and moral under Christian morals (the morals we all currently share) than under the ethics of the Roman Empire. Christians ended the slave trade for specifically, uniquely Christian reasons. It was a religious issue. Modern progressives grew out of the Protestant culture of puritan founders. It’s why we embraced immigration.

It’s one thing to be ignorant of the creator (and deny creations miraculous nature), but to be ignorant of world history; please read about Rome.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#216

Post by kemayo » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC

sixQuarks wrote: post #186

uoaei wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know that the microdosing also turned into macrodosing on a lot of occasions. It's pretty easy to slip into this. I don't have a good answer for solving this but criminalization is definitely a bad answer, so we will have to find a way to discourage such tendencies. It may be that it is mostly or entirely a cultural thing in which case public understanding of the drug is a prerequisite, so I'm glad more are star…

This thread found me at the perfect time I swear. A friend of mine just gave me a huge amount of shrooms. I've always been excited about microdosing, so I tried my first .4 grams the other day and felt a great layer of good vibes that day. I was going to increase the dose, knowing it's not really microdosing and figuring I could do this on a regular basis. I'm now taking this thread as a sign to slow my roll.

For what it's worth, from my understanding, you've got a lot of room before that even hits what's considered a "normal" recreational dose -- which I think is around 3.5g of dried psilocybin. Broadly speaking, if you don't have a history of bipolar / schizophrenia, it sounds like you'd be pretty safe from lasting consequences. Separately, "bad trips" mostly seem to happen when you go towards higher than normal doses, as you lose conscious control of your thoughts...

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#217

Post by zdragnar » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC

kawhah wrote: post #179

zdragnar wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal anecdatum, different SSRIs affect people differently. Some that others here have praised didn't help, or had bad side effects. What I am on now (Lexapro) was life changing in a good way, with only minor sexual side effects that more or less went away. As such, studies that day "SSRIs have this effect on people" or "have these side effects" are fundamentally flawed. Despite belonging to a common class, there…

Ok, so the middle-brow infotainment psych blogger's essay is valid, but meta-analyses are 'fundamentally flawed' because 'different SSRIs affect people differently'? This news will probably come as a huge surprise to the psychiatric epidemiologists who carried out the peer-reviewed research that Alexander mangles! They probably thought all SSRIs were exactly the same!

A meta-analysis of SSRIs isn't very useful, since it draws conclusions about a group of drugs that do not have similar behaviors within an individual.

It's a bit like doing a meta analysis of hydrocarbons in two and four stroke engines. Some will work better than others in some situations, but the meta analysis itself isn't illuminating when you are putting liquid propane into a gunked up carburetor.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#218

Post by nyc_data_geek1 » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 3:08 PM UTC

explaininjs wrote: post #30

Been there, done that. Have the postcard. I got to experience the even more fun version where you feel like your death is imminent, you watch your surroundings stop rendering chunk by chunk, and your long term friend is telling you it is indeed all a simulation that everyone but me knew about, and I really was dying (more accurately: going "offline" for an upgrade, and my "spirit" wouldn't be persisted across version…

The line between faith and delusion is tenuous at best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_delusion

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#219

Post by detritus » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC

globalise83 wrote: post #78

legitster wrote: post #17

I'm a fairly drug-averse person. I have no qualms about other people using them, but it took us over 30 years to really understand the implications of legalized opioids. And that was after a lengthy and expensive FDA process. So respect to all of the early adopters who have nothing to lose and are willing to put their own sanity at risk. I just don't understand people who in one breath curse the Sackler family but th…

Up until the mid 2000s, psychedelic mushrooms in their natural state were completely legal in the UK. They were banned based on virtual no evidence of harm or widespread abuse despite being used recreationally for decades, just because the government decided that they didn't seem like the kind of thing that should be legal.

That's not quite right, sadly. They banned them because careless traders in places like Camden could buy them cheap from Holland and sell them with zero responsibility to anyone who wanted, including minors.

I know this because I was in part responsible for opening up the gates, with a company that sold them very responsibly, starting in Camden.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Hit the Market in Oregon

#220

Post by NeuroCoder » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 3:12 PM UTC

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #83

elliotec wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I'm a big time psychedelic advocate, and relatively frequent consumer. Prozac actually saved my life. Psychedelics since have certainly enhanced it, but they could not accomplish what prozac did. I can go into more detail if interested.

Please do, I’m genuinely interested in your experience because, in my experience (!!) with family and acquaintances, I’ve only ever see Prozac as a part of a turn for the worse. I do acknowledge I might not be aware of cases where it was neutral or positive, however. What was your experience like? And do you still take it?

When mental health is so bad it messes with work and personal relations one may feel obligated to share. When things start going well there's no need to explain what's going on. I've seen many that it works for and some where they just had to keep looking at other options.