221–230 of 280 posts
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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. "Go read this book" ain't it.
'extraordinary claims' is laughable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...
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I personally consider the war on drugs to be a colossal failure and there tends to be widespread agreement that the War on Drugs was somewhat effective at enabling enforcement, but ineffective or counterproductive at eliminating drugs or reducing long-term harm. What America continues to ignore, intentionally or not, is the root cause of drug addiction which tends to be a more complicated and nuanced
Well, now the war on drug is over and we see that the harms from _not_ doing it are worse. In 2023, overdoses overtook gun and traffic deaths _combined_. Surrendering to the drugs was a mistake. Yeah, we should have changed tactics. Zero-tolerance policies were terrible nonsense, long prison terms were not helpful, and we should have clamped on prescription pills way sooner. > but ineffective or counterproductive at…
We're talking 48 thousand gun fatalities and 40 thousand traffic fatalities (98 thousand total) vs 80 thousand
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>The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance Famously, the US spent about 15-20 years attempting this with opioids. They were widely available to people via a pseudo-medical process, or via secondhand dealing. Opioids were/are manufactured by regulated, publicly traded companies with inspectors who controlled purity and productio…
And yet, as the DEA and other agencies tighten distribution of opioids, deaths continue to increase.
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My view of a lot of the opioid crisis stuff aside from physical pain is psychological trauma - people self medicating as an alternative to doing the work. That’s why I think the psychoactive legislation that’s introduced recently about psychedelics is so important because those things can rapidly accelerate processing and healing psychological trauma. My view, is if this was done 20 - 30 years ago there wouldn’t be s…
Sorry what? What does ego death have to do with healing a back injury?
(This is a serious article by a serious researcher. There exists good work on Frontiers in….)
The 5-HT2A receptor is profoundly immunomodulatory. (Acid is arguably a more potent immunomodulator – an antiinflammatory one – than it is psychoactive.) Local inflammation is a thing in injury, "global" inflammation as well – there is strong interplay between cytokines and metabolic/anabolic/catabolic process; Interleukin-6 stimulates osteoclasts which actively break down joint tissue – and neuroinflammation also affects physiology. Muscle tone, blood flow, pulmonary function, and so on.
Ego death happens to be a phenomenon or qualia when you boop that receptor hard. I'm not sure ego death necessary for anything. It might be. Ego death is very intimately related to the individual neuronal state and memory, and inflammation is quite enmeshed with that. (Cf. cortisol.)
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The other day I needed pseudoephedrine, so I asked for one box of instant tablets and one box of extended release capsules. The store said they’re only allowed to sell me one box so I had to choose. I’m so glad these policies made it so meth isn’t super easy to find anymore. Oh wait, meth is still dirt cheap fucking everywhere, but now I also can’t get effective cold medicine either. Can we please just admit this pol…
https://improbable.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Pseudoephe...
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Indeed, and for a layman like me it even sounds quite plausible that this could be what is making people go "mad as a hatter": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erethism Add to that that the routes of administration preferred by heaver users (smoking and injection) are also those that maximize the harms of mercury exposure.
Some tested samples had mercury. Others, formic acid. Neither one great to inhale. https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2025-09/CY%202023%20...
> Ephedrine meth was like a party drug. […] You could normally kind of more or less hang onto your life. You had a house, you had a job. […] P2P meth was nothing like that. It was a very sinister drug. It brought you inside. You didn’t want to be around other people. You wanted to just kind of be alone with whatever bizarre thoughts your mind was now cooking up, and conspiracies. That sounds a lot like the progressio…
Precisely.
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Sorry what? What does ego death have to do with healing a back injury?
Chronic Back pain is correlated with emotional trauma. The physical body is a mere projection of the energetic and spiritual being. This is wahy meditative spiritual practices such as yoga and taiji are good for chronic pain, as the physical pain is a mere projection of a deeper trauma that needs released.
The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents. All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. The gover…
Meth on the other hand really is quite nasty, it’s directly neurotoxic to dopamine neurons in a way that regular speed isn’t
the problems with the meth epidemic are 3 fold. two problems are intrinsic to meth and one is a matter of public policy. 1) meth is highly addictive and there is no pharmacological intervention for that addiction. there is no clinically effective therapeutic treatment for it either 2) meth is neurodegenerative. heavy users end up with a permanent disability 3) at some point around 2010 a bunch of cities decided it wa…
Small towns in North America are are being decimated by meth. The drug dealers move in because there are no drug task forces, just underfunded and ill-equipped sheriffs and local police. My wife and I live in the suburbs now but grew up in a very rural community. Last year we went to a wedding there. It was shocking how many people under the age of 50 were missing half their teeth.