Dose-dependent effects of LSD in double-blind placebo-controlled study (2020)

> I think multiple rapid use unnecessarily increases the low-ish risk of psychosis.

Not that I disagree, but the 200ug dose is generally considered safe in a clinical setting, and most doses administered were smaller. Assuming individuals were screened for mental health risks before entering the study I don't think the risk was significantly elevated because of the dosing rate.

As someone who's done most of the substances listed in the article; none of this matters.

First of all, you can't take 16 people with the drug-taking profiles listed and reliably account for their drug and alcohol intake. 100% of their sample came into the lab as drug seeking individuals. Expecting them to only take drugs under your supervision is a fairy tale. Expecting them to tell the truth about their alcohol intake is also a fairy tale. I'm not trying to be incendiary, I am speaking from experience as a recovering alcoholic with 5 years sobriety.

Second of all, 10 day spacing between doses is insane, and dangerous. Having done this particular drug many times, I can tell you that it takes at least 2 days to feel "normal". And by that, I mean "as normal as you're ever going to feel." You see, LSD changes you... forever. Each time I took LSD I only ever "came down" 99.5%. That other 0.5% stays with you for years, if not forever. You never fully "come down" all the way. You're always just a little "less" than you were before.

Thirdly; this particular drug is not just mind altering, it is life altering. It unlocks things in your mind that permanently change your perception. I don't know anyone who's taken this drug who disagrees with this statement. This permanent altering of your consciousness is literally the thing you pay for and hope to receive.

Honestly science will probably never get LSD right. In order to do so the scientists would need to experience LSD first hand, several times before they could reasonably ever begin planning such an experiment. "You just don't know what you don't know."

This all sounds like warmed-over hippie-lore. I would have loved for my first time to take LSD to have been in a completely safe, clean environment filled with treats, doctors, and other people who were attending to me. The worst parts of the first experience for most people are fear of police, fear that one is having a medical problem, and fear that one is being a problem for the people they're with. This experience has precisely none of that.

It's good that they got data from first time users. It would be even better to get data from people who hadn't been set up with psychedelic culture expectations, but that jury pool is hopelessly tainted.

> I think multiple rapid use unnecessarily increases the low-ish risk of psychosis.

I don't think there's any good evidence that LSD affects the rate of psychosis, just the entirely expected outcome that people who have psychosis may be triggered to express that psychosis by LSD use, combined with the statistical fact that people try psychedelics at the same period of life as schizophrenics start showing their first symptoms (late teens to early 30s.)

I hear you. I didn't try any of them until I was in my late forties. I don't drink and we basically tried pot a few times a year in our thirties. I read about set and setting and we decided to try it.

Taking mushrooms with my wife in our forties was probably one of the top ten most important things I've done in my life.

The traumas absolutely come up. That's kind of the point. They take you where you need to go even if you don't want to go there. I had a lot of rage and anger and deep embarrassments and now it feels like that's been scraped out of me, like a boil that needed to be lanced.

It's not for everyone to enjoy but I think it's for everyone, once or twice.

> this particular drug is not just mind altering, it is life altering. It unlocks things in your mind that permanently change your perception.

I agree, but to 100x less of a degree than learning French, or becoming very good at chess.

One thing we need to pay attention to is the degree to which this chemical, and this class of chemicals, have been romanticized by the culture. Especially because these drugs make you more suggestible, expectations picked up from social lore can dominate one's subjective experience, and the memory of it.