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Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

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Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#91

Post by grensley »

GuB-42 wrote: post #68
embedding-shape wrote: post #29

> The work also benefits from recent research into the use of hallucinogens in treating mental illness, which has promoted broader acceptance of these substances. “There was long a feeling that drugs made you sick and addicted,” says José Capriles, an archaeologist at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) who excavates in Bolivia. “Today, there is a new openness,” he adds, which is freeing grant money and attrac…

The problem with psychoactive drugs, as I understand it, is not the lack of positive results. There are plenty of well recognized cases. The problem is the the unpredictability, because there are plenty of catastrophic results too, and we don't really know why. We can't tell "in your case you should take this dose, the risks are quantified and acceptable, and this is what we should do if things go wrong". And it is n…

The way I think of them is as a mulligan in a trading card game like Magic.

Sometimes you have a hand you can't keep, and it's better to draw a new hand with one fewer card. Don't want to do that too many times, or you will almost certainly have a losing hand.

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#92

Post by zer00eyz »

GuB-42 wrote: post #68
embedding-shape wrote: post #29

> The work also benefits from recent research into the use of hallucinogens in treating mental illness, which has promoted broader acceptance of these substances. “There was long a feeling that drugs made you sick and addicted,” says José Capriles, an archaeologist at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) who excavates in Bolivia. “Today, there is a new openness,” he adds, which is freeing grant money and attrac…

The problem with psychoactive drugs, as I understand it, is not the lack of positive results. There are plenty of well recognized cases. The problem is the the unpredictability, because there are plenty of catastrophic results too, and we don't really know why. We can't tell "in your case you should take this dose, the risks are quantified and acceptable, and this is what we should do if things go wrong". And it is n…

> but we are struggling to turn these drugs into treatments that up to modern standards.

We are struggling to pay for the research that would result in these being effective treatments (not subscription medicines) that would start out as generic drugs.

> ketamine

Great example, SPRAVATO, is a brand name patent protected version of this drug (enantiomer) that as a dose cost over 500 bucks.

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#93

Post by mannanj »

nickff wrote: post #69
mannanj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for mold, low enough doses aren't poison? Can't you just say this about anything. If you have poison in a low enough dose it's not poison. So it means jsut about nothing to say alcohol isn't poisonous because you can have a small dose of it.

Fentanyl is actually much more toxic than the mycotoxins produced by mold (which I'm guessing is what you're referring to), and yet fentanyl is generally recognized to be a useful drug because of its therapeutic effects. If something has no possible therapeutic, recreational, nutritional, or culinary effect, while being toxic, it might be fair to characterize it as a 'pure poison'.

That's a good definition. Still, you can take it literally - anything small enough doesn't really harm you. and meanings can be stretched to support whatever conclusions you want.

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#94

Post by LoganDark »

mannanj wrote: post #93
nickff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fentanyl is actually much more toxic than the mycotoxins produced by mold (which I'm guessing is what you're referring to), and yet fentanyl is generally recognized to be a useful drug because of its therapeutic effects. If something has no possible therapeutic, recreational, nutritional, or culinary effect, while being toxic, it might be fair to characterize it as a 'pure poison'.

That's a good definition. Still, you can take it literally - anything small enough doesn't really harm you. and meanings can be stretched to support whatever conclusions you want.

> anything small enough doesn't really harm you

What about prions, or strange matter?

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#95

Post by klrefg »

daseiner1 wrote: post #85
999900000999 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The War on Drugs only serves to give law enforcement unlimited extra constitutional powers. Even the bizarre murder of Central American fishermen is justified by someone somewhere having a dime bag or something. Who needs trials , or evidence. Drugs are bad. Government good. Drugs bad.

i don't dispute that the "War on Drugs" was (is?) pretty much just a glorified jobs program for law enforcement but nevertheless some drugs are very bad. ironically enough alcohol, despite being the most readily available drug after caffeine, is probably the worst drug of all in terms of societal destruction.

> is probably the worst drug of all in terms of societal destruction.

We are yet to observe a society where the overwhelming majority of the population regularly uses fentanyl, crack cocaine or meth-amphetamine. I bet that if we try comparing apples to oranges alcohol would end up being relatively harmless.

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#96

Post by klrefg »

sophacles wrote: post #56
clickety_clack wrote: post #2

Given that many of our current-day subterranean environments are also covered in art and strewn with drug paraphernalia, can we really say that it played a key role in the rise of the civilization?

Yeah, it's really gross that coffee cups are left all over the place. But yeah, rise in caffeine consumption in place of ethanol is thought to have enabled and fueled the enlightenment, and been a major factor in the industrial revolution.

Look up how much the signatories of the constitutional convention drank the night before signing the constitution. Alcohol consumption remained massive during the 1800s by our standards, people just drank we more than we do and probably more than in the 1600s and 1700s because distilled alcohol became cheap and widespread while you only had access to beer and wine before that.

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#97

Post by klrefg »

theturtletalks wrote: post #33
fugalfervor wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence of that. What you say is not supporting, but rather "conveniently makes sense". I don't dispute the utility of psychedelics. But I have observed (and this is anecdotal) that the fanatic devotees of the drugs tend to engage in magical thinking around the power/history/whatever of psychedelic substances, no matter their intelligence or accomplishment, or rigorous critical thinking in other areas.

It’s a controversial theory, but it does exist[0]. As far as I know, there is no prevailing theory about where consciousness came from so speculating based on existing theories isn’t claiming it’s the truth. Is it such a leap that fungi are one of the few natural drugs that cause brain elasticity so maybe our early ancestors took it to get the evolutionary process started. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_ape_…

How are these traits inherited by descendants who don’t consume drugs that increase the plasticity of their brain themselves?

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#98

Post by 999900000999 »

klrefg wrote: post #95
daseiner1 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't dispute that the "War on Drugs" was (is?) pretty much just a glorified jobs program for law enforcement but nevertheless some drugs are very bad. ironically enough alcohol, despite being the most readily available drug after caffeine, is probably the worst drug of all in terms of societal destruction.

> is probably the worst drug of all in terms of societal destruction. We are yet to observe a society where the overwhelming majority of the population regularly uses fentanyl, crack cocaine or meth-amphetamine. I bet that if we try comparing apples to oranges alcohol would end up being relatively harmless.

If Crack was legal today would you light up a pipe ?

Maybe right after filing your taxes ?

The most dangerous part of any illegal substance is the illegal economy existing to support it. Drug dealers generally can’t sue each other so they resolve disputes via other means.

Law Enforcement has the right to suspend all your so called rights because someone you may or may not know might have an unauthorized substance.

Set the legal drug age to whatever the enlistment age is. I’d argue 21 for both.

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#99

Post by mitxela »

klrefg wrote: post #95
daseiner1 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't dispute that the "War on Drugs" was (is?) pretty much just a glorified jobs program for law enforcement but nevertheless some drugs are very bad. ironically enough alcohol, despite being the most readily available drug after caffeine, is probably the worst drug of all in terms of societal destruction.

> is probably the worst drug of all in terms of societal destruction. We are yet to observe a society where the overwhelming majority of the population regularly uses fentanyl, crack cocaine or meth-amphetamine. I bet that if we try comparing apples to oranges alcohol would end up being relatively harmless.

Not fentanyl, but it used to be normal to get methamphetamine as a cough treatment from any pharmacy, and it worked out okay.

Re: Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization

#100

Post by mitxela »

dyauspitr wrote: post #75
AngryData wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of it was weaker small beer though too, like 1-2%.

Each person was going through a gallon a day though, that’s still 4-5 standard drinks which is a crazy amount to drink all day everyday.

Spread throughout the day you wouldn't be more than half a standard drink deep at a time in terms of psychological effects.

Terrible for your liver though.

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