Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients • Hacker News Board

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#131

Post by dwiel » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

heavenlyblue wrote: post #108

Mordisquitos wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I acknowledge you're playing devil's advocate, so don't take this too harshly, but the truism that "Shrooms play with your brain" is meaningless as an argument against shrooms—more so when contrasting it to "just an addiction" . Where is an addiction anywhere but the brain? Of course opioids play with your brain. So do SSRI antidepressants for example, whose very name is based on their most commonly accepted mechanis…

Opioid addiction is a clear mechanical fact. We know exactly what one needs to do in order to overcome opioid addiction (or how to avoid it on that matter).

It is absolutely not as simple as clear mechincal fact. See for example the rat park experiment [1]. There is also the case of huge numbers of people addicted to morphine during the Vietnam War, who upon arriving back home to families and support networks and away from horrors of war were able to kick the habit quickly and without difficulty.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#132

Post by hombre_fatal » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

cubix wrote: post #130

cjaybo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an awfully self-centered way of viewing the situation.

How so? I was respectful of her decision -- although I suspect it was more her husband's decision -- but I wouldn't have made the same myself. It seemed like there was a lot she had to say, but couldn't in that state due to the drug. I suppose she thought she was making sense, but objectively wasn't.

Maybe cancer was giving her bigger challenges to deal with than making sense to you which lead to extreme measures like high drug doses (chemotherapy, marijuana, opioids).

To me it sounds like complaining that your friend with cancer is objectively a worse friend because he doesn't feel like playing Mario with you anymore after taking his cancer drugs or painkillers. He thought he was a good friend, but he objectively wasn't >:(.

Maybe there's reasoning behind the trade-offs they chose that involves more than you?

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#133

Post by unnamed10 » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

shekharshan wrote: post #34

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For at most, 11/12 people. For some folks, it makes anxiety or depression worse than when they started. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251840-mindfulness-and... .

I would recommend unvarnished Buddhism, not mindfulness in a pill that is being taught by these crazy apps. Buddhism teaches mindfulness in the context of wisdom and morality, not just mindfulness. Moreover the word itself is a horrible translation of the Pali word “Sati” which means “remembering to be aware of the state of your mind”. The key is “remembering to be aware”, not just “awareness”.

If I wanted to learn more about this unvarnished Buddhism, where would I start? Do you have any resources that I could check?

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#134

Post by h0h0h0h0111 » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

yummypaint wrote: post #103

fsloth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume the main reason for the controversy is the prevailing dogma "Drugs are evil". This dogma has been used to enact countless bills of legislation in most rich countries, which in turn have encumbered the justice and police system, which in turn have put thousands upon thousands of people into to the correctional system for years. After all that busywork, lives destroyed and taxpayer money wasted, it is really…

I would argue it goes beyond "drugs are evil" for many people and is more of a vestige of the country's backwards puritanical past. It has little to do with medicine and is more closely related to the idea that pleasure is wrong and pulls one away from devotion to the church, tithing, etc. If presented with a hypothetical recreational drug with no side effects, people with this perspective will immediately say it sho…

An analogue is that in some cultures sex for pleasure is forbidden

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#135

Post by hombre_fatal » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

heavenlyblue wrote: post #108

Mordisquitos wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I acknowledge you're playing devil's advocate, so don't take this too harshly, but the truism that "Shrooms play with your brain" is meaningless as an argument against shrooms—more so when contrasting it to "just an addiction" . Where is an addiction anywhere but the brain? Of course opioids play with your brain. So do SSRI antidepressants for example, whose very name is based on their most commonly accepted mechanis…

Opioid addiction is a clear mechanical fact. We know exactly what one needs to do in order to overcome opioid addiction (or how to avoid it on that matter).

How does your reasoning hold up to the fact that our countries have no clue how to deal with large opioid addict populations that have become homeless yet there are no shroom addict homeless populations, in fact it's basically unheard of that shrooms have ruined anyone's life outside of perhaps rare cases and HN anecdotes?

You're comparing something that happens to anyone taking opioids long enough, to the worst thing that you can imagine to happen on shrooms, something that actually happens to ~nobody who has taken shrooms, and somehow trying to table that as an argument.

Meanwhile, I can walk through tent cities in Vancouver of people getting free opioid injections from the government because they've given up so hard on this ez addiction problem. And I'm supposed to somehow see how shrooms are actually worse.

You said you're playing devil's advocate, but you still have to try to make an argument. It just sounds like you're field-testing a half-baked supposition you came up with 30 seconds ago.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#136

Post by treis » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #119

treis wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I presume the main reason for the controversy is the prevailing dogma "Drugs are evil". Eh, I think this is too dismissive of some pretty deep ethical and philosophical considerations. Effectively they are giving drugs that alter ones perception of reality and then judging their effectiveness on the patients perspective. But since they alter their perception of reality it's tough to rely on patient reports. Anecdota…

Effectively they are giving drugs that alter ones perception of reality Like over the self painkillers do? Personally I don't see the philosophical difference in alleviating physical pain from alleviating psychological pain. Of course, if the psychological pain is caused by a condition that can be fixed the fixing the condition itself is of course better. But in many cases of depression and anxiety there is no clear…

Painkillers are temporary. The drugs we are talking about are meant to effect a permanent change on the user.

And pain killers, at least OTC ones, don't alter someone's psyche. We can, more or less, rely on their judgment that painkillers are helpful. You can't necessarily say the same for mind altering drugs.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#137

Post by cubix » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #132

cubix wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? I was respectful of her decision -- although I suspect it was more her husband's decision -- but I wouldn't have made the same myself. It seemed like there was a lot she had to say, but couldn't in that state due to the drug. I suppose she thought she was making sense, but objectively wasn't.

Maybe cancer was giving her bigger challenges to deal with than making sense to you which lead to extreme measures like high drug doses (chemotherapy, marijuana, opioids). To me it sounds like complaining that your friend with cancer is objectively a worse friend because he doesn't feel like playing Mario with you anymore after taking his cancer drugs or painkillers. He thought he was a good friend, but he objectivel…

As I said, I respected her decision. But I question whether it was the right one because it left her unable to communicate despite an obvious desire to do so. I’ve had conversations with people on high doses of opiates, and while they were far from their full mental capacity, they were intelligible. My dad tried to convince her husband to use conventional painkillers, which I supported, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#138

Post by voisin » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #6

I don't understand the controversy. We know full well the natural world is full of substances with significant impact on our bodies. Many such substances can even on average be harmful, but when used correctly, they are beneficial. Opioids come to mind first and foremost. It's not controversial to give e.g. serious accident victims a shot of morphine. Why are investigations into medicinal use of shrooms or marijuana…

The cynic in me believes the controversy is manufactured (“war on drugs”) rather than based on logic and due only to the fact that corporations make money on prescriptions, but not on things you can grow or forage on your own.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#139

Post by DennisP » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

cubix wrote: post #125

DennisP wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did any of your anecdotal cases have terminal cancer? And did they take the drugs in a professional therapeutic context? In a medical context, we can evaluate this as objectively as we evaluate painkillers or antidepressants. We can use our normal tests for anxiety and depression, run studies where we watch outcomes, etc. From what I've seen, the effects have been very positive for these patients.

My aunt died of cancer a couple of years ago. She took an unorthodox treatment of extremely high doses of marijuana, which her husband encouraged. It was frustrating for the rest of the family since it was impossible to have a coherent and meaningful conversation with her in her final months. My dad and I had some doubt about it, but the decision was entirely in the hands of her husband because she was too inebriated…

So that's entirely different from what the article is talking about. Psychedelic treatments for terminal patients often involve a single large dose of psilocybin in a clinic, and that's the end of it. In the article, the first case study is like that, just one dose and three months later the patient still felt profoundly changed.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#140

Post by jeromenerf » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #122

treis wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I presume the main reason for the controversy is the prevailing dogma "Drugs are evil". Eh, I think this is too dismissive of some pretty deep ethical and philosophical considerations. Effectively they are giving drugs that alter ones perception of reality and then judging their effectiveness on the patients perspective. But since they alter their perception of reality it's tough to rely on patient reports. Anecdota…

> Anecdotally speaking, there's a lot of people in this world that think drugs make their lives better when an objective observer would pretty strongly disagree. what does it even mean to "objectively observe" whether drugs make someone's life better? we can look at a crack addict living in squalor and plainly see how their addiction inhibits material success. we can also imagine how deeply unhappy we would be to liv…

I agree that "objective observation" doesn’t mean much.

However there is no doubt people under destructive addiction are very well aware that their condition sucks. It doesn’t mean they can overcome the addiction and the urge of scoring.

I think the parent was related to behaviours such as "pot makes me more creative when playing music" or "cocaine makes me a better dancer" or "alcohol makes me funnier". All of which can be externally appreciated with a different opinion.